Premier League 23/24

[Birdy]

I have to read up on the discussion, but are we seriously debating whether that Milan side or the Galacticos of the early 2000s would struggle versus ASTON VILLA?!

I know football have developed tactically in the last 20 years across the board, but it's not like they were simple-minded peasants back then. It's just these days more mid-level teams have become better tactically when it used to only be the absolute best side back then with a wild card added in between like Porto in 2004.

Tactically AND physically.
It's the combination

Birdy is getting the 00' and honestly even the late 90's confused
With 50-70's football, sport science was well underway in the 2000's, running around alone isn't going to win these guys games.

It's not just running around dude.
It's pace integrated through tactics so as to kill opponents with it
When you have a Dembele, for instance, out and wide to receive the ball and kill you in transitions through dribbling and speed, you create numerical superiority and clear chances
It's not running around

What on earth do they put in the water where you live
That Milan side would wipe the floor with McGinn and co lol

LOL
You think so, as simpleminded folk as you are
Prob has something to do with the narrative you have in your head about how great the galactico Madrid team were

Also this notion that players back then weren't athletic is perplexing, especially considering AV players are absolutely not it themselves, both in terms of speed, making quick turns and all other things that go into allowing you to read the game effectively

A bloke like Diego Carlos or Pau Torres is absolutely nowhere near Nesta, be it on conditioning or reading the game
Seedorf and Gattuso would both run for days

What even is this suggestion that Milan wouldnt be able to play their game because some lad who's never played a CL fixture would outrun them
Even a feeble soul like Busquets would run circles around these players, let alone Pirlo

I said all these people were GOATS in reading of the game.
Reading can get you this much if your legs can't follow suit THOUGH
And that's the fact you can't get

Yes, those sides were excellent tactically FOR THEIR ERA, which is many levels below tactically to our era.
Emery of today with any decent side of THAT TIME would have chances to win CL every year against Ancelotti or Del Bosque of that time.
Imagine adding to this the CURRENT athelticism of players which is not comparable to that time
Nesta Maldini and Stam were even slow for their time. Imagine how SLOW they will be if asked to play the game on the pace it is played nowadays.
They will not be able to exercise at all their decision making, as things will pass before their eyers in a flash

 

[KingLeo10]

They really weren’t physically conditioned back in the 00s

BBZ just got a raging one seeing this

 

[fergus90]

I could agree if we are comparing todays sides with the best teams in say the 50’s and 60’s where everything was slower paced, most players had additional jobs and they had no state of the art facilities etc.

But yeah by the 90’s football had evolved where it isn’t too different today in terms of physical demand and expectations on the athlete to maintain a good weight all year round.

For example, let’s say Unai Emery’s mighty villa did crush Ancelotti’s Milan in game 1. The players and coaching staff of Milan would be well equipped to adjust both tactically and physically by the next game to let their quality overcome us.

The only thing that has really changed today I think compared to 10-15 years ago, is the flair player has very much been driven into extinction because stats are preferred to entertainment.

 

[malvolio]

Ajax 95 would wipe their collective asses with curent Aston Villa.

 

[jamrock]

Birdy is wrong literally everyone else is right with this topic, it's not even worth debating honestly.

Imagine thinking Any of the better arsenal teams not including the invincibles would get walked by this arsenal current team.

With a spine of seaman, Campbell,Viera,Henry,Cole, if memory serves me right.

 

[El Gato]

Too funny this
What the time has actually done is absolutely not increase the athleticism gap between 00s and now to the point where 00s players wouldn't be able to keep up or play their game
The effect is pretty much opposite - it made players otherwise more pedestrian in nature individually function better and more organised as units and be able to achieve better results in league format against those with less quality, less organisation and resources to get both

A team like Villa or Pool can appear better than is through a sum of its parts. Doesnt mean they are anywhere near those other teams mentioned overall or would be in direct meetings. And that gap between the quality of individual parts is what would be their downfall when playing against elite sides of the 00s. Where McGinn or Milner misplaces 5 passes unforced, Pirlo would do it once if at all. No amount of training can beat the raw skill these teams had assembled in their squads. Which is evidenced by longevity of the players who in most cases continued to succeed outside those sides

 

[Messigician]

Great side, great team, one of the greatest teams of all time in the book.

Ok, we agree on that.

The question that was posed is different: Could that team, with their tactics, and their players play, in everything they could do back then, Aston Villa of 2024, with their tactics players etc, and win?

You don't have to have a very wild imagination to make the thought experiment, and see that that Milan would not stand a chance.
Think of simple stuff at the beginning to understand: the through balls Kaka was playing to Shevchenko and Crespo would not be able to materialize, simply because they would be outrun in the sprint to much more mobile and physical defenders
Same for other simple stuff: Nesta Maldini and Stam were all best defenders on decisions, but were all slow AF. they would get outrun so easily by pure speed

Start thinking such simple differences and you will see that they won't have a chance


PS: Yes, I know, all people love idolizing great teams of the past. But they were great within their ERA only

@KingLeo10 what’s lil bro smoking?

 

[Messigician]

Legend of AC Milan and former striker, Andriy Shevchenko, spoke about some anecdotes related to former Rossoneri teammates. Here are his words to the microphones of Sky Sport:

“We were doing crazy challenges. Geat athletes have joined Milan. I remember that we had done a speed test, and when I saw what Paolo Maldini did at 35/36… he was still beating everyone."

Birds thinks Malden was slow for his era lol

 

[Rassvet]

Birdy W as usual

Zidane said it himself:

In term of physicality a lot has changed, back in my days you could be less well physically but it wasn't a big deal as you could still make up for it with your technique. Nowadays I think it'd be more complicated.
[...]
It's a different type of football, and it might have played tricks on me, physicality was one of my problems when I was a player.
I was a very serious player precisely because I often struggled to recover, I took naps, I drank water, I stretched, I did a lot of things, I don't know if in 2023 I'd have been ready physically

 

[Rassvet]

Not really that arbitrary chief

CL format allowed big clubs from the dominant leagues (LL, EPL, Serie A, Bundesliga) to compete with each other

European Cup only allowed league champions, which meant a bunch of C rate league champions from Belgium, France, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe etc made it in

In the old format, the likes of RM and Juve also got more cracks at the cup in addition to lower competition

Old european cup was so easy to win that Barca couldn't win it until 1993 and Madrid had a 32 year drought until 1998.

Beta excuses from a beta won't change the fact that Liverpool's european pedigree is a notch above Barcelona's and clear of every other club outside of Madrid, Bayern, and Milan.

 

[serghei]

Damn, birdy, sport is not a led tv to say that in each new generation the tv is simply and objectively better. It's based on humans. Hell, by this logic every new boxer is gonna be better than Ali because of new fitness programs and training methods and whatnot. Nobody thinks this.

The individual talent and ability of the players is the key factor. Take tennis, not just boxing, or other sports too. It's not a given that 3 new giants are gonna appear soon and rise to the level of Nadal, Federer, or Djokovic. Or a new Michael Jordan. That might not happen for many decades into the future.

 

[KingLeo10]

Old european cup was so easy to win that Barca couldn't win it until 1993 and Madrid had a 32 year drought until 1998.

Beta excuses from a beta won't change the fact that Liverpool's european pedigree is a notch above Barcelona's and clear of every other club outside of Madrid, Bayern, and Milan.

Look at lil Temp jr., you gonna cry?

 

[Birdy]

Ajax 95 would wipe their collective asses with curent Aston Villa.

LOL
Ajax 95 already started having problems with sides that had better physicality than them even back in the day. Imagine pairing them with a 2024 side

Too funny this
What the time has actually done is absolutely not increase the athleticism gap between 00s and now to the point where 00s players wouldn't be able to keep up or play their game
The effect is pretty much opposite - it made players otherwise more pedestrian in nature individually function better and more organised as units and be able to achieve better results in league format against those with less quality, less organisation and resources to get both

A team like Villa or Pool can appear better than is through a sum of its parts. Doesnt mean they are anywhere near those other teams mentioned overall or would be in direct meetings. And that gap between the quality of individual parts is what would be their downfall when playing against elite sides of the 00s. Where McGinn or Milner misplaces 5 passes unforced, Pirlo would do it once if at all. No amount of training can beat the raw skill these teams had assembled in their squads. Which is evidenced by longevity of the players who in most cases continued to succeed outside those sides

The bolded part is correct, everything else is wrong
Pirlo survived for many more years because coaches like Conte would shield him with an army of physical runners and duelers to cover up for him in this department.
Pirlo would not misplace a single pass, but for it to have any worth he would need those runs in the space.
As I explained before, if you think Schevhenko was a good such runner in the early 00s, go watch a tape of a top CL game of the time, and you will see how much slower he looks in everything (max speed, quickness of unmarking from defender, etc) compared to even a mediocre winger/forward of our era

Look what Zidane said himself and Rassvet quoted. The former players themselves, the ones who have a little bit of self-knowledge in them, know already

I am not surprised that 'BF experts' resist to accept hard truths that dethrone their idols

Damn, birdy, sport is not a led tv to say that in each new generation the tv is simply and objectively better. It's based on humans. Hell, by this logic every new boxer is gonna be better than Ali because of new fitness programs and training methods and whatnot. Nobody thinks this.

The individual talent and ability of the players is the key factor. Take tennis, not just boxing, or other sports too. It's not a given that 3 new giants are gonna appear soon and rise to the level of Nadal, Federer, or Djokovic. Or a new Michael Jordan. That might not happen for many decades into the future.

Football is not an individual sport.
Besides, I already conceding that in terms of TECHNIQUE, and only there, the past generations were much better.
Individual talent these days is seen in other skills: you have Haaland who doesn't know whether the inside of ball is made of air or water, but is wanted by all teams because of his speed, power, and the timing of his runs

OK, everyone can keep denying it, that doesn't change the fact that it's the hard truth you don't want to see

 

[serghei]

It doesn't matter if it's individual or not. Past greats would dominate to a great degree. Maradona would rack up CL wins today like crazy. Sport changes but changes are not linear like in technology. Some aspects in football are easier currently than in the past.

 

[El Gato]

Very on brand from usual suspects to completely misconstrue what players say to suit their point

Also love the continued repetition of a baseless assumption that players who played like they did in 00s, if got yanked out their era and plonked into 2020 wouldn't a) get in the gym/cryochamber b) it'd make no difference or better yet make them worse because they'd forget how to kick a ball with 100% accuracy.
Any of these dudes from 00s were Jordans of their era without access to facilities to help them be at peak condition so many of them obsessed over training 24/7. And with great results. Give them current tools and see what happens

But nah, fucking Aston Villa would roll them all the while we're watching a 38 year old Modric runs rings around every Premier League side to prove entire point moot