Eat Salt

I think the solution should be more JAFFN. It’s only logical isn’t it? I literally giggled when this came up “uploaded 20 seconds ago” on my morning commute.

I have found myself over the last few weeks turning this off thinking I was watching a football podcast. Standards are on the floor right now.

This is what I've been saying. After several reset pods and the death of knosh chat its been all uphill for footy chat. There's only so many times I can take Flav's freezing cold takes on Phil Foden. Enough is enough.

You have my sword

He’s just the only one available every week Like a prime James Milner

Yeah, kind of outstayed his welcome innit.

On Cinema vibes

He didn't know a IT crowd reference. I'll tell you one thing and I'm not ashamed to say it, my estimation of James Lawrence Allcott as a man just fucking plummeted.

@@Luke-zq2wrI mean that reference was actually born from common conjecture of the Wenger era in general, IT crowd didn’t make that sound bite, but rather referenced a football talking point that at that time had pierced the mainstream consciousness.

@@Buddanutslol the IT crowd certainly coined that phrase.

@@Glovvox people were literally saying it before it was on the IT crowd, which is why the IT crowd used it as an example of what someone who knew nothing about football would say about Arsenal.

@@Buddanutslol I understand what you’re saying - but the exact phrase “the thing about arsenal is they always try to walk it in”, which is what James was referring to, was from the IT crowd.

Good point. Never thought of that.

Absolutely agree.

Away goals mean nothing. One match home, one away; it's about making it "fair" in terms of the ground along the 180 minutes. Inside of that fairness is that the game develops, so why should there be an advantage for when you score away? It's as if you were punished for not making an advantage when playing home. Makes no sense

@@lucasalaniz76 the whole point of away goals was to incentivise the away side to go for it more. Before away goals were introduced to football, each side was far more likely to play for a 0-0 in their away fixture. Having away goals was just a fun way of stopping teams trying to park the bus away from home and add an extra element of jeopardy to the game. Part of the reason Liverpool's comeback in the 2019 Champions League Semi-Final against Barcelona was so incredible after losing 3-0 at Camp Nou was because Liverpool not only had to score 4 goals to win the tie, but the game was on an extra knife edge the whole time because one goal at Anfield from Barcelona would have probably put the game beyond Liverpool's reach. The Spus Ajax tie also only worked because of away goals.

​@ellisg95 The away goals rule is redundant for its original purpose; to make people to try score away. That's not really an issue anymore because it's so much easier to score nowadays. Also, it irritates me that this oxymoron has begun to emerge in football circles that it has somehow made it boring not having away goals. So many ties were dead because the home team had lost, say 1-0 away and conceded early, so they'd almost always fall to pieces. Also, had Barça scored in that game, it'd be done and people would switch off. Not a great product. At least now they don't have to think of machinations whilst playing a match. It's like how the NBA back to the basket rule should be gotten rid of as it's no longer needed imo.

Mate I really like this comment. There are some classic world cup matches from the 2000s available to view on the fifa KZfaq channel. If you go back and watch them and they are like finals and semi finals I do agree that there is quite a bit of what you just said. And these are so supposed to be high high level games. There are actually a surprising amount of moments where you’re sat there going no way a player would attempt that now because it’s such low percentage, they’d rather pick a pass or something that would honestly be way smarter. Tactically the game has moved in leaps and bounds since the mid 2000s in my opinion. It’s very difficult to breach defneses these days. There were a lot of fantastic flair moments back in the day but the space you had back then was so much more as well. The debate as to whether the game was more entertaining then as compared to now is an interesting one. Both had pros and cons. Back in the day football was more fun. But it was also considerably more basic tbf. Also the space you had back then was so much more and that’s such a key difference to today. It’s possible to argue the aggregate quality of players is higher today in terms of skill and tactical awareness. However in some respects tactical systems and “philosophies” have made the game a little more boring at times.

Pep Guardiola changed football, although you had the Ajax and Holland of the 70s (total football) for me it’s got too statistical

@@shottskiesFalse. You didn't have much more space back in the 90s and 2000s. Those were some of the most defensive eras in the history of the sport. Italy winning the WC in 1982 changed the sport. Brazil who were unanimously playing the greatest and most attacking and pleasant football at the 82 WC were knocked out by Italy in the quarter finals who were more defensive and pragmatic. Teams and coaches realized that at the end of the day you can win ugly. By conceding less goals, being more physical and packing the defensive line. Look at some of the Serie A tables of the 1990s. One year AC Milan won the league title and only scored like 40 goals in the league. They were winning games 1-0. That era was more defensive and world class defenders were literally a dime a dozen. Just that AC Milan team alone had Baresi (widely considered the greatest CB), Maldini (also considered as one of the greatest CBs), Costacurta, Pannucci, Ancellotti. You had Nesta, Cannavaro, Thuram, Desailly, Laurent Blanc, Roberto Carlos, Cafu, Lizarazu, Lahm, Maicon, Hierro, Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, Hierro, Ashley Cole, Zambrotta, Puyol, Vidic, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Walter Samuel, Lucio, Aldair, Pique, Bonucci, Chiellini, Koeman, Sammer, Jaap Stam, Materazzi, Carvalho, Kolo Toure...So on and so forth. The 90s and 2000s had amazing defenders. And defensive football teams often dominated. Italy and France both made the Euro 2000 final and were both built on elite defenses. You had teams like Mourinho's Chelsea and all the Serie A teams which were super defensive. Greece won Euro 2004 off the back of amazing defending and parking the bus. This idea that star players had acres of space to exploit is false. The danger areas were usually well defended as many teams sat back and parked the bus. This is before even mentioning how dirty and rough the defenders were allowed to be especially in the 90s. All of this made scoring harder which is why it was a low scoring era for the most part. The defenders back then were typically much better defenders than we see today, but many of them weren't great on the ball. The footballing philosophy has changed greatly. Defenders today aren't judged as much on their actual defending skills as how good they are playing out from the back. To the point that managers sacrifice solid defending for the ability to play out from the back. Which is stupid since a defenders main role by definition is to DEFEND goals...Not to be attacking outlets in the buildup. They've done the same thing with goal keepers as well. Keepers are judged by how they play out from the back instead of their actual shot stopping and commanding of the box. Before they didn't really care if you could or couldn't play out from the back and they didn't expect you to. They expected you to save shots, win crosses, command the box, organize the defense, etc. Playing out with your feet was a bonus. Most keepers just covered up or hoofed the ball out of danger and let the actual outfield players do the build up.

Then begs the question, what's the point of sport? Is winning or joy more important? If you can have both, obviously, then that's ideal. But if you have to sacrifice one? The answer, right now, is winning at the expense of joy. Makes sense, to a rational, sensible adult. Winning is why you play - it's a job. To a kid, and speaking for myself as a kid, I played sport because of how it made me feel. Alive inside. I watched sport because I wanted to emulate the skills of my favourite players. I didn't care about numbers statistics or records. I cared about playing with my friends, about executing new skills, about having fun and expressing myself. The soul of football is the kid on the playground, and without it, winning means nothing.

Hey bro 👌

Sorry but there’s no chance. If Uniteds 08/09 side who played fast transitional and fluid football against a predictable Man City side...the only reason pep looks so good is because every other manager tries to copy him with worse players and they don’t even fully understand why pep does certain things. It’s just been labelled as playing “the right way” so it’s almost looked down upon to play direct (how Brentford took points off city and how Liverpool took a title off city)

F1😞😂

@@connorwatt507 I think that’s opposite 😂 no one has any efficiency except red bull. A sport full of people who are sh#t at their jobs and then max

This should be the most liked comment

At the same time though, it does encourage away sides to try to score instead of always parking the bus. I think most away teams went more offensive, whereas home teams probably didn't go much more defensive, so I would see it as a net win for the fans. Also if the first leg is a draw, it's a bit of a waste of time without away goals. No matter the score of the draw, might as well have been 0-0, so teams that scored 2 or 3 away goals get no reward for it.

Yeah this is a shit take. Away goals were bad and encouraged defensive play. It’s been much more attacking since they were binned

I challenge you to watch a full 90 of a match in 1995 and come back holding this same opinion.

My football superstition is I’ll always put a bet against my team if we’re drawing or only a goal up in the last 20, always accept defeat before we’ve even conceded and try at least to make some money of our demise

Ye they’ve just been coached from the youth team to just keep the ball so there’s no imagination when it’s drilled into them to think of the next pass, instead of like Ronaldinho who would think about going forward as soon as he got it, and doing something that entertains people

Between those teams I can already think of plenty of world class players, I think people get clouded by nostalgia too much. When people talk about old teams and players, let’s use Ozil playing for Germany at the 2010 World Cup for example, you don’t they don’t rate him in terms of how good he was at the time, you rate him as Ozil he was throughout his entire career. For example Wirtz at the upcoming euros will be better than Ozil at that World Cup, but because he has so many years to go in his career it would be silly to say he’s better than Ozil. Football hasn’t declined we’ve just got older

Yeah but even then any good club side would've beaten the World Cup winners. International football has never been as good quality wise (across a whole game) as a top tier League due to the limited amount of training time the team gets together.

@@Football_Advanced In likelyhood you’re right. I just look at the quality of the likes of Italy, Germany, Spain and Brazil and can’t help but to think where are the best players in the world in their position?

@@salexa171 to be fair you are right, there aren’t as many standout players/names as before, that’s just how football has adapted, from an individuals game to a team game (cos of Pep). But anyway Italy have completely fallen off and don’t have many world class players at all, I think it’s coincided with serie a’s downfall from the 90s. Spain are obviously never gonna be as good as that 2008-12 team, but their team isn’t bad. We still hold Brazil to the heights of their old success, forgetting the last time they had a good World Cup run was 2002. Brazil haven’t been up to scratch for a long time. Germany have been awful since they won the World Cup but they’re improving now.

This exactly, I recall this happened to arsenal in the uel a few years ago, playing someone like olympiacos and they conceded an away goal in extra time, then equalised, but then at the end of extra time they lose because of away goals

people say it's hard to score away from home, but it's also hard to keep a clean sheet away from home

Yes but Wenger football was incredible entertaining to watch

Arsenal were better to watch in Wenger years only winning FA cups. Sad times

Yeh well they should have scored more away goals than the opposition, then they wouldn't have been KO'd. It was the same rule for both teams mate. The away goals rule was only done away with because it ensures that the best teams go through every time, because over 2 neutral legs their supremacy is much more likely to triumph. This generates more revenue for the big soulless corporations. Away goals were good because a game was more dramatic and could turn on a knife edge, and teams had a real incentive to not park the bus away from home. It also ensured less games were dragged into extra time.

@@jackbarton4938 Real Madrid literally 3 peated the CL before away goals was scrapped. The same 4 or 5 teams made finals every year lol. It’s never been super competitive And no it wasn’t the same for both teams because one team potentially gets 30 more minutes to score an away goal. But it’s also just a nonsensical and arbitrary rule, there’s no reason a goal scored away from home is worth more than one scored at home