Well done on the website. A question i have been thinking about since Michael Owen questioned if players like Matt le Tissier would make it into a premiership team in the modern era despite being head and shoulders above most in terms of pure football talent. The first thing i would use to gauge talent between generations is to look at the transfer market trends. I start my list of record breaking transfers in 1982 lets see what happens when we approach the modern era. Neymar smashes the record by so much i will include transfers higher than his predecessor Paul Pogba.
82: Diego Maradona
84 Diego Maradona
87Rudd Gullit
90 Roberto Baggio
92 Jean Pierre Papin
92 Gianlucca Vialli
96 Ronaldo Nazario
96 Alan Shearer
97 Ronaldo Nazario
98 Denilson
99 Christian Vieri
00 Luis Figo
01 Zinedine Zidane
09 Cristiano Ronaldo
13 Gareth Bale
*Now look what happens the list
16 Paul Pogba
17 Neymar
So ive mentioned that nobody has got close to the Neymar transfer but these are the players who would have beaten Paul Pogbas transfer and become a record trannsfer if not for the Neymar transfer.: Lukaku, Bellingham,Caicedo ,Rice, Ronaldo(at 34) ,Grealish, Griezmann, Hazard, Fernandez, Felix, Dembele,Coutiniho, Mbappe. I think we can at least agree that a record breaking transfer got you a lot more bang for your buck back in the day.
Hi Ian
Thanks for signing up to the site. That’s a great post and you are spot on about getting more for your money out of a transfer back in your day.
The players you mention on the list above would certainly demand a massive fee in todays market, and in terms of quality for the time, they far outweigh the impact for their time in the game that some if not most of the new record transfers are having.
The game is different yes but you would have to think that record transfers are players that should be reshaping a whole clubs trajectory, its not really the case now.
I think it just speaks volumes about where the game is with regards to money and business.
But God help me and I’m going to have to go brush my teeth after this, I somewhat agree with Michael Owen, the game is so different now that i think a lot of players from the past would struggle in todays game. But the game is different now and I do wonder if some of the players form this era would struggle back then. It was more physical and modern players like Neymar for example wouldn’t last after one tackle from a Julian Dicks or Neil Ruddock.
I think the problem lies with super advanced academies and data analysis. Players are probably getting that bit of rawness and spark taking out of their game ar an early age. Analysis will say 90% of shots are saved or go wide from area x so never shoot from there. Turnovers in x part of the pitch lead to x amount of chances for the opposition etc. I think Jack Grealish is a perfect example of a players sparrk being suppressed for the long term good of the team, not so much for the spectator. Im just trying to imagine someone trying to tell the flair players of yesteryear to go into their shell, Gascoine, Romario, Di canio, Del piero, Bergamp, Zola, Redondo , Zidane , Henry, Suarez, to name a few. Manager would be sent to jail. Furthermore i believe on that list only Zidane has won a balon dor. This year their was huge controversy over should it be Rodri or Vini jr. I think that says a lot
Youre right ponting out the stifling of players for the good of the team, in one sense I get it from a team perspective but it potentially robs spectators of seeing something special develop with freedom.
Its also potentially damages a players career. A player could come through an academy thats stunts their growth for a system and never develop into what they could be.
I suppose one of the biggest changes and many would feel culprits of decline is of course VAR. Im sure people could talk all day long about VAR but i really think most of the talk would be pointless. The biggest thrill in football was always the ball hitting the net, quick look to the linesman, quick listen for the ref’s whistle and you knew the goal stood or nor within a second. I say debate on VAR is mostly pointless seeing as it was originally brought in as teams and fans alike no longer wanted to see unjustly moments such as Henry’s handball or Lampards goal that wasn’t. Essentially clear and obvious errors by the referee. My solution: the Var team get 30 seconds to review a refs decision, same as if a ref has to go the screen and check an incident. If you cant see a clear error or its open to interpretation in 30 seconds then it is not clear and obvious so the onfield decision stands. Simple. Will there still be errors? YES!! . Are there errors now?? Yes. Has there always been errors?? Yes!!. I would allow more scrutiny with the analyses if like in rugby league a " captains challenge " was introduced. In rugby league any referee decision can be reviewed once per game at any time, if the challenge is successful you keep it and ca challenge another decision, if unsuccessful thats it no more challenges. Think i would lije to see 11 angry players complaining to the ref , yet still not use their challenge. This of course would need tweaking and come with its own issues as it crosses over sports but i think a system like this would mean less stoppages and more responsibility on teams to make their own luck. I definitely think rugby league should at least be looked at as a framework for other sports as to how video analysis should be used. While other spirts have slowed with its introduction, Rugby league has thrived and used it as a way of finding foul play , dealing with the culprits as soon as possible and leading to the game SPEEDING UP as the lone of inquiries are being dealt with by the bunker as the game is continuing.
VAR could provably have a thread all on its own. But it’s something that I have flip flopped on a few times.
When they introduced it I was all for it, but the issues we have seen with it have made me change my mind.
It’s to open to interpretation for me which leads to poor decions from referee’s who at this pont just seem incompetent, in the Premier League at least.
I like what you say about a challange system, I might be wrong but I think something like that has been discussed. I think it’ll be a managers challange or something.
My problem there is certain refs seem to like being the talking point or the star of the show and no amount of challenging will make them overturn a decision.
In rugby its not up to the ref to overturn but the Video room. If no clear signs of an error have been made the onfield decision stands. I think thats the part that needs pushing more, the onfield decision. We relied on that for all of football history and it worked out mostly ok. I mentioned two incidents above as reasons VAR was introduced and with little detail im sure you knew what i was talking about despite 1 incident taking place 19 years ago ( wow) and the other 15 years ago ( wow again) . Now im sure if united lost a game next week because the opposition forwards fingernail was technically offside and goal shouldn’t have stood im sure id be very disappointed. Maybe even come on here and whinge about the whole situation. But im sure i couldn’t come here on 20 years time and mention the great fingernail scandal of 2025 and have everyone get the refrence. VAR was supposed to eradicate the major incidents. Fact is Football is an ancient game open to many interpretations, which makes it more strange it has become so reliant on video analysis. If you took other major sports and had them refereed by a robot that was programmed to follow everything to the letter of the law American football, rugby, basketball, golf , tennis, snooker , cheese rolling etc. Would pretty much go untouched. Football would become unrecognisable and have an hour of extra time every game.
19 yearsđź«Ł
American football is a good example of a game refereed to within an inch of its life, its a 60 minute game spread out over 3 hours. Its genius actually, all tha advertising cramed into one 60 minute sport, and i say that as someone who likes the sport.
Whatever way we look at the VAR situation its here to stay, I cant see them scrapping it at this point.
I am interested to see what this semi automated offside thing is going to look like.
Im mire curious to see what kind if VAR controversy would occur in cheese rolling.