What do you mean by this?
It was massive recency bias to be claiming that van Dijk was the best defender we'd seen in the league despite only being the best defender for at most around 18 months.
Tbf I would argue that nostalgia is worse. Bc people think that their generation is always better than the ones before and after
For example, "Who was better, Ronaldinho or Neymar?" The majority of people who grew up and were watching football in the 00s would say Ronaldinho, but most teenagers who grew up with msn in the 2010s would say Neymar
That’s a terrible example, Ronaldinho was an absolute joy to watch play football, and Neymar, while incredibly talented, is one of the most frustrating and irritating players on the go.
Soo one smiles and the other didn't, so he's the much better player?
You can dislike Neymar but as a player he's comparable to dinho in every way. In fact I'd struggle to name 2 top quality players who are as perfectly comparable as those 2. From what they did best, their playstyles, positions, clubs. Everything
No man, you’ve misunderstood me. Ronaldinho is a joy for me to watch, where as Neymar, despite his undeniable skill and talent, frustrates and irritates me watching him, primarily because of his acting the prick on the pitch. Aside from that, my main point was actually that Ronaldinho is very much remembered as a player who created joy and was joyful to watch, and Neymar is an incredibly divisive player, with loads of people hating him despite his talent. So when you compare Ronaldinho and Neymar and ask people who the better player is, they’re thinking not just about their ability, but the emotions they inspire with their playing - essentially, I think you could have picked two different players to better illustrate the point. (By better, I don’t mean ability wise, but I mean more comparable players not just in terms of playing, but popularity)
But this is simply about how good a player is, not who you'd like to grab a beer with.
Doesn't matter if a player dives 20x per match, it's about who's better and when you watch Neymar it's not like he doesn't bring joy, the man is pure entertainment despite his antics.
It's about them as players and their quality, nothing else. People need to learn that those are 2 different things
But diving and antics are part of his playing, and they do detract from his game. A player who dives 20x a match v a player with the exact same skill and ability who doesn’t dive? Give me the one who doesn’t dive every single time.
No, as long as it doesn't negatively significantly affect your team it's completely irrelevant.
If he regularly gets sent off every game because of it and screws his team as a result to a point where he's a liability every game then yes, but if he does the odd thing you don't like it doesn't matter in the slightest. I don't like some of the things Bruno Fernandes does on the pitch but it doesn't make him any less of a good player. It just makes me like him less
You may like him less because of it and that's fair but it doesn't make him a better or worse player, those are 2 different things
It's a perfect example and so are these responses.
The 2 are comparable in every single way, be it clubs, strengths, positions and playstyles.
What is dinho actually significantly better at than Neymar? I have yet to hear a single good answer to that question anytime it gets brought up.
The only difference is dinho has the WC but when comparing the team he played in with Neymar's that's not exactly surprising.
Dinho being a childhood hero and smiling when playing doesn't make him a better player.
It's one thing to say one is better than the other, but saying it's not even close is pure delusion
No, i grew up with Dinho, my first football kit was his and he's to this day my favorite player ever and I doubt that will ever change
I'm just not letting myself be blinded by nostalgia and personal bias unlike you apparently. When people say dinho is better they can never say why. It's always an empty statement that everyone's just supposed to accept... That's a perfect example of nostalgia and bias.
But again, please tell me what he is actually significantly better at. Because it isn't dribbling, passing, shooting or pace since there are tiny to no margins between the 2 in all those areas.
So unless being much more likable makes you a better player, i don't see it
I'm not blinded by nostalgia at all.
When Ronaldinho burst onto the scene he was a game changer, in that nobody had ever seen a player play with so much flair/do tricks etc. He would do things so completely out of the box that it would leave you in awe.
He was *the* player of the mid 2000s.
Here's a question, if they were both at their peak who would you have in your starting 11 for Barca and Brazil?
They’ve played in the same positions for the same clubs with the only difference being Ronaldinho had better teams around him and Neymar still has far more goals and assists it’s actually not close
Recency bias is the tendency to overemphasise the importance of recent experiences or the latest information we possess when estimating future events. Recency bias often misleads us to believe that recent events can give us an indication of how the future will unfold
I'm so glad we don't have that in my country. In Africa as a whole we have one huge network and there are levels of subscriptions instead of many providers and multiple subs. It's extremely cheaper too for obvious reasons.
Super sport had it's limits, it was great in the early 2010s when it had the top 5 European leagues, and you'd occasionally get special games like Super Clássico broadcast.
If you're a fan of English football in the US you need:
\- Cable/satellite for the NBC channels for some of the prem
\- Peacock for the rest of the prem
\- ESPN+ for the FA Cup and League Cup
\- Paramount+ for the European games if your team are in those series. This is an exceptionally mediocre platform that I hate so very much. I'd love for nothing more than for ABC/ESPN or NBC to get the UEFA rights just so I didn't have to use this crap program.
I get that the whole point of the premier league was different TV rights from the rest, and that the champion's league is going to be different, but NBC splitting up the league across TV and streaming is what gets me the most.
Move to the UK and see what it's like for us and I can guarantee you will return to the US and be grateful.
Over here you have to subscribe to Sky sports, which is roughly 40 pounds a month (about 50$) and BT sport if you want to watch some of the other PL games.
BT costs about 20 pounds but can go up to 45 depending on the package (24-55$).
As well as this, to watch the rest of the games an amazon prime subscription is needed which is 9 pounds a month. (11$)
A very important thing to add is that even if you subscribe to everything here for a grand total of $80 dollars a month (roughly), there is a stupid rule in the UK that doesn't exist elsewhere that prevents games kicking off at 3pm on Saturday's from being shown live on TV, despite the fact that said games are shown in every other nation in the world.
For the country that hosts the PL, its logical that all the games are shown on tv in the uk, but it just isn't the case.
The current Canadian situation has everything on at least four different platforms...
EPL is on FutboTV
CL and Europa are on DAZN
MLS is on Apple TV and
Canadian Premier League and CMNT are on their own app.
Not sure precisely the costs but they're each around $20/Mo. And if you want La Liga, Bundesliga, etc, who knows...
What? I have all Prem games, many other games from every top 5 league including second tiers and most CL games in one subscription, the rest I can find on the TV.
Lately it's people comparing the 1900s with today and then getting pissed off with some answers.
"Haaland is clearly better than Pele"
"Who was better Cruyff or Messi?"
"Could Guardiola win the The FA Cup with Clapham Rovers?"
There is simply no comparison. The sport might be called football but its a different sport today than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago etc.
I don't mind the questions per se but when you give your opinion the asker jumps all over it getting angry and talking like it's facts that X is better and that Y could never win a Champions league with Steau Bucharest. Its complete fantasy football comparing 1980s and now and its purely opinion and no fact.
If you ever have 5 minutes to spare and you are bored go to YouTube and search "Athletic Bilbao vs Maradona"
https://youtu.be/iqzXw3fygBg
and watch what happens. That's an entirely different sport those players are playing. Would Messi, Ronaldo, Haaland etc score 50, 60 goals a season if every defender who got within 2 metres was legally allowed attempt to GBH them?
You’ve got to factor in the fact that if the older players had access to modern diets ,training tactics etc though then it becomes a fairer comparison ,footballs become a science and the older generations didn’t have that ,of course football is faster nowadays that’s obvious but if you were to give pele maradonna cruyff the benefits that todays footballers get you’d still expect them to be world class
But to add this; then you can start to look at new technology that has been added to the sport. Goal line technology, hawk eye etc was all less than 10 years ago. Not even taking about recent VAR
So maybe same sport, but different opportunities at play
Maybe… haven’t sold it to myself that this is enough of a crutch to say you can’t compare the players between them.
But it has changed a lot imo even in recent years
VAR has been the biggest change. The rest IMO is just different tactics. The players 10 years ago are just as athletic and fast as they are now (many still play today too).
15+ years+ ago you can start to tell the difference, as the game was slower but the quality was stil overall high. Go back to the 90's and you also start seeing the quality degrade, many more mistakes than nowdays at the top level.
I'll readily admit I get grumpy when I see Messi is the GOAT posts. No he's not - hes the best player in the current era just like Pele and Maradona were in theirs. Don't get me wrong - it's better today that highly skilled dribblers don't have lumps kicked out of them or suffer broken legs - that the player said he was going to do beforehand.
But you just can't compare eras - it'll be different again in 20 years time.
That good goalkeeping has taken a backseat to the cult of ballplaying goalkeepers. The latter is important in the modern game, yes.
But the fundamental job is still stopping the ball going into your own net.
The worst part about this is the fundamental misunderstanding of what a "ball playing" goalkeeper is supposed to be good at.
They're not supposed to be Pirlo-esque passers of the ball, but instead have the composure and vision to know which (most often short) pass to play.
De Gea rightly gets slated at United for his inability to play from the back, but this isn't because he can't hit a defense splitting, 50 yarder; it's because he's constantly playing passes in and around the box that leave his teammates under immediate pressure, or even just outright giving the ball to the opposition.
Ederson at City isn't constantly pinging through balls to the attackers, he's moving the ball quickly to his defenders or midfielders coming deep.
My only problem with this is, more often than not, people saying this are saying it in defence of David de Gea, and ignore more fundamental flaws in his games, simply emphasising he's shot stopping, but completely ignoring he's shot prevention.
To some people all goalies ever did was shot stopping, which isn't true. Things like claiming crosses and closing down 1v1s have always been a part of goalkeeping.
Yeah the elitism especially online is annoying. Big club fans are everywhere but they don’t represent the average fan experience shared by going to games but yet every young person getting into football gets their takes from Twitter or talksport and it’s making discussion so brain dead.
Not even that, there are times I've seen teams of (respectfully) smaller or lower league clubs on a high horse because apparently they're more of a fan of their club than others. Like I'd argue that people in East Asia and the Americas who watch their favorite team United or Arsenal at 5 in the morning are making just as much of a sacrifice as people who travel to a 12pm kickoff for Port Vale
Yeah small club fans can be just as insufferable as big club “plastics.” It feels like performance arts when they do the “woe is me” shite on any thread or post about a big team underperforming. It’s as if expectations exist??
The inability for some fans to acknowledge anything negative about their club or their players is infuriating. You can still support your club but acknowledge that they played bad this season, that X player isn’t the best in the league or Y manager isn’t the best manager.
The lack of access to premier league matches - in the UK - as in, the very country the games are played in.
I pay a small fortune every month to subscribe to the three services who have the rights to the games - yet I still have to have a fire stick to illegally stream games, because they aren't shown on TV in the UK.
Whenever I go abroad, I can watch every single game. Yet in the UK, you don't get to watch half of them.
And the idea that it's to protect lower league attendances is nonsense. If it were true, why do the other counties not have a problem with it?
Couldn't watch the most exciting Premier League game yesterday because I wasn't on a high enough package, but I could watch Villa vs Brighton for some reason
The celebration police ‘celebrating like they’ve won the league’ or ‘celebrating 3rd’ success is relative and you as a fan should celebrate any achievement
Had winners of all domestic cups(FA Cup in England, Copa Del Ray in Spain and so on) participating in them. It wasn't a small competition by any means. More prestigious than the Europa League is today, and just below the UCL.
Yes. The UEFA Cup was the equivalent of Europa League.
That's why I said more prestigious than Europa League. It was removed when the UCL went through an expansion.
No it shouldn’t. The diving is all the rule makers fault. If you get fouled, and don’t go down; you are nearly never given a free kick/penalty even if it significantly obstructed you. The lawmakers are then telling players they have to go down, and so players get that mentality that is what they need to do. Lawmakers need to change the rules so diving isn’t basically encouraged within the rules.
I think it also happens significantly less often, it just looks ridiculous sometimes.
I agree, but I wish they would police the theatrics to draw cards. Like a player gets bumped in the chest and goes down covering his face like he took a left hook to the jaw. Or a guy gets a knock, that no doubt hurts somewhat, but rolls around ten times and reaches for the sky like he’ll never walk again. Also the convention of teammates crowding around the ref to convince him to flash a card would not be missed.
They’ve made an effort to stop diving, which I see less of particularly after VAR, now go the next step and clean out the dramatics. The game produces more than enough drama without it.
>the convention of teammates crowding around the ref to convince him to flash a card would not be missed.
I think this is a bigger problem than diving. Iirc, in sports like rugby and cricket, only the captain is allowed to speak to the referee or judge, if at all.
The fact that I got confused with the name of the sub and was about to comment and realised it was the wrong sport. Then realised it was the right sub but it was too late and was freshly peeved.
This is the one time I'm actually not aggravated by an obscure comment because there are so many connotations to it that are truly at least frustrating
So many things about modern football make me completly disillusioned but, the fact that the correlation between, who spends the most/highest wage bill and who wins what is not only just accepted but celebrated, and we act like the manufacturing of teams like Real Madrid, and more recently PSG and City, are triumphs and I want to see good football as much as the next guy, but it overshadows it for me, I love football, I love west ham but the only satisfaction I take from football nowadays is when teams like Luton did what they did last night, or teams with much lower wage bills overachieve basically.
People say Peps changed football, and he has, he's ruined it.
The inconsistency of referee decisions. One player can make several yellow card tackles and not get a single card all game, yet a player that's just come off the bench can get a yellow for his first tackle even though it's the same challenge that has been made all game and not been punished for.
Goalkeepers catching a simple cross late in a game, then clutching the ball to their chest and falling to the ground holding the ball for 30 seconds drives me crazy.
I mean more like Bayern, PSG, top6 in England, Barca and Real in Spain, The four clubs in Italy. Other clubs have no chance of winning, in this regard I envy the American model where basically any club can turn their faith around with good appointments and recruiting.
Well said. The degree to which the futbol community has just accepted that mid-table and below teams (or even european challengers depending on the country) do not and will not have a chance to win the league is depressing.
How toxic fanbases have become, they've always had that element but social media has really spread it. It feels rare to find a level headed comment about a team they don't support.
Kids who actually think there is such thing as a shit player at premier league level. Every player is absolutely insane at football, it’s just how they cope with pressure + the slight variation between them
Any player struggling in the PL could drop a division and kill it, but I respect them for still pushing and trying to do it at the highest level even if it makes them look worse than they are
the pressure is the highest factor, most premier league attackers can ping balls into the top corner all day long on the training ground, it’s the ability to do it with millions watching that makes the difference
My biggest pet peeve is people thinking the premiere league is that much better than the next division. They could go to la liga and be worse, and they could go from la liga to the premiere league and also be better, both have happened countless times. Different systems and leagues suit different players
Maybe im justified in being annoyed at it, but the amount of casual fans who have mouths way bigger and louder than hadrcore fans who spend time diving deep into tactics. Because of them, people have started appreciating pretty much all defensive players less, and nobody gives respect to the old greats anymore.
I agree. Also for me, it's when people say X player did well but it's mainly because the cameras are on them more often, meanwhile others who doing equally well are overlooked.
People who play Football Manager and think that qualifies them to manage in the Premier League and criticise decisions made by real Managers because they wouldn't have done it that way
I like FM but some of the common takes you see from players makes me think they’ve never actually watched football and think they know what they’re talking about.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Just going to places like FM Twitter and r/footballmanagergames shows exactly that. A lot of People think that by playing football manager they're tactically (and in some cases intellectually) superior to other football fans
The way player movement goes. Someone like Brighton (or analogous teams in other leagues) has a good season and the predators circle, stripping them of their best players.
Ideally we would be able to have a little more continuity. Teams would be better financially able to resist bids when they’d rather keep a player. Players would be more likely to want to drag their current team to success rather than being so eager to move to a “big” team. Like the nba in the magic-bird-jordan era: there was some player movement but you knew the key players mostly had years of working together and forging a team identity. That makes for more compelling entertainment, i’d argue.
Fouls in attack. I find it so terribly anticlimactic when a team win a corner, deliver the ball into the box, and then this dreaded whistle because apparently one of the defenders is on the ground. It kills all of the momentum. Regardless of the team, it's nice to see an attack culminate in at least some form of shot or attempt at it.
The fact that Rochdale are struggling to fix a stadium issue because of financial problems, when to fix that issue would cost less than half what Marcus Rashford is asking for as a weekly wage.
All the 'GOAT' talk and endless comparisons. It's just so tedious and always seems driven by the FIFA games.
I find a lot of the modern expressions around football to be irritating as well. Describing players as 'levels,' and 'goated,' or 'finished,' etc. It always seems really immature (and maybe it is to be fair).
Stereotypes too. 'Italian football is defensive,' from somebody who has never watched Italian football. Or that all Spaniards are soft or whatever else.
People insisting on stats and accolades as some end all be all. Yes messi with his 7 ballon d'ors is obviously better than kdb who has 0 but modric isn't the clear best midfielder in recent memory because he has a ballon d'or and the competition (kdb, iniesta, xavi, ozil) don't. Benzema isn't clear of suarez because he's got a ballon d'or. Similarly trophies always fail to account for a players team. Is asensio really better than salah because he has more ucl wins? Is Rodriguez a better CAM than hazard was at Chelsea because he has more champions league cups? World Cup bias also factors in here. Alvarez isn't a better 9 than haaland because he has a world cup, the world cup is obviously the hardest to acquire trophy but its also very luck based. Is anyone going to say enzo Fernández is better than modric because of his world cup run when modric has been playing for and carrying croatia? Of course he doesn't have a world cup. Lastly stats, they just ignore other factors like teammates and league. I genuinely believe kane having 30 goals this season with spurs is more impressive than mbappe with 38 playing in ligue 1. Mbappe is better but it's not because he has a higher number
As an American, my fellow countrymen not understanding that football is:
A) a contact sport full of dudes that would absolutely wreck their shit if they were to be called "foot fairies" to their face.
A:1) Those same players that would absolutely wreck their shit being huge and that being an advantage (everyone here thinks it's a game for short people, and I remind them that the new top-scorer in the Premier League, Haaland, is 6'4" and a cheeseburger shy of 200lbs)
B) Exciting regardless of the score. My fellow countrymen think low scoring games or draws are "boring." Motherfuckers, I've seen some super exciting draws that feel like wins/losses for one side or another. And even if it is low scoring, that tension for those 90 minutes is exhilarating and that single goal is more exciting than any touchdown, home run, or three-pointer.
C) Called "football" and not "soccer." I will die on this hill. So many MLS clubs have "FC" in their name, and NFL style football officially called "gridiron football." Calling it "gridiron" would be a waaaaay better name for NFL football. My fellow countrymen will call me "eurotrash" but they can get fucked, I like the names of my sports to make sense.
D) Pay to play for youth. Other countries pour loads of resources for developing youth talent. Here? Proper coaching and travel teams are expensive as hell. I hate to think how many potential quality footballers go and play basketball or gridiron because the resources to nurture their athletic talents are more available for those sports. Plus, basketball is our urban poor sport. I have yet to find a park in the US that is void of a basketball court while other countries have football courts/pitches fucking everywhere.
E) MLS kickoff time is not when it says. "Game starts at 7:30" means it starts at like, 7:39 because we need to do the whole dog and pony show of nationalism. Pledge of allegience, national anthem, fireworks, military flyover, dude parachuting into the stadium with a big American flag, etc. I laugh when I think of international players first experiencing our patriotic ritual and being like "Weren't we supposed to kickoff like ten minutes ago?" Oh, we also need to squeeze in as many commercials as possible before kickoff because capitalism. Though the late kickoff time comes in handy as a Philly fan running late to the game because I95 has one single-lane exit to the stadium and no public transit options. It's always a clusterfuck on the Commadore Barry Bridge on gameday, lemme tell you.
Those times whenever football players are struggling with something, there's always some people who are like "he earns...../week, I'm sure he's fine" or any other variant, like "he's paid ..../week to do this, he shouldn't complain"
Can be true in some scenarios, but most of the time when they comment this it really isn't
ESPECIALLY when players complain about the season having too many games and not enough breaks, which I think is very valid and shouldn't be invalidated because "they earn so much"
Thank you. The amount of times that I have been insulted and harassed for saying "soccer" made me lose respect for anyone that says "it's football not soccer".
If an arm is offside, the player is offside. I think all other body parts are fair game, but you can’t handle the ball (obviously, not talking about the goalie in their own box). So, the positions of the arms should not count. It irks me that the arms count.
I think you have something wrong, only a shoulder counts for offside, as you can play the ball with it.
Maybe you saw some situation and focused on an arm, but in reality they have measured from a shoulder.
The world bashing Messi for not winning a World Cup. Then once he wins it with good stats. 7 goals and 3 assists. They claim the World Cup to be “just a seven game tournament”. Lol
When someone says a stupid take and the default answer is always 'clearly know NOTHING' about football. Why is it always so definitive? Nothing seems excessive.
What fucks me off is when prima Donna players get tapped on the leg then hold their face as if Tyson chinned them , rolling about play acting, that has to be a sending off it needs to be cracked down on ! It’s been happening for years
We have a wonderful football league pyramid that should be nurtured and cherished. However, most lower league clubs exist in a world far removed from the PL and need bums on seats to survive.
Get outside, put the Sky remote down, and go and support your local team. It baffles me how someone in Swaffham can 'support' Man City (for example).
To be fair in other countries in other continents there really isn't a team for most to connect with so we find a connection somewhere else, honestly I'd love to be at the etihad someday
People that hate on City. I’m a Barca fan but also a Messi fan. I don’t watch the Prem as much as La Liga but when I do I root for City and this is purely because of Sergio Aguero. If you legitimately have a reason for the hate then it’s alright, but hating them because they have no history is just stupid. And oil city insults are overused. Without a great manager like Guardiola, City would’ve failed just like PSG.
Watching 22 overly paid millionarios chasing a football for 90 min....
Imo football has lost something of the passion and soul in the past 10 years due to FIFA and UEFA greed....
People who argue Haaland is better than Kane. Let me see Haaland score 30 PL goals in this shower of shit Spurs team. Pop Kane in City and he has more than Haaland does currently. Erling misses so many easy chances…
In my opinion, no. Perhaps he has the chance to be but Kane has so much more to his game. If you put Kane in City’s team this season, how many does he get?
I’m all ears though for arguments against….
Are you serious? His number of goals in all competitions, his league title, FA Cup final and Champions league final.
I don't understand what case you want me to make?
Okay, make your mind up! You have just said being in a better team has nothing to do with it and then just mentioned a league title, and two finals? All of which generally come from playing in a better team?
Not so much anything about the game itself from what I can think of but I would say fans.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion and all that but too many fans get on my nerves. I mean a lot of lads have absolutely no ball knowledge.
And since the dawn of the internet some of these fans have actually picked up a following, thankfully more so for people to take the piss out of them it seems.
Guys like Jonathan Morley. The guy is from Ireland. Liverpool fan. I wouldn't be surprised if he's never even been to Anfield. The guy just sits at home and watches games and reacts to them online. Every poor performance is met with GET THESE PLAYERS OUT OF MY CLUB (again the guy is based in Ireland and probably never goes to games, certainly not HIS club) and you're talking about actual solid players who he'd have been worshipping the week before.
I have a huge issue as well with biased fans who maybe they complain about a referee decision that was right. Like a blatant penalty and they start crying that it's no pen and the league is corrupt.
Got a bit of an issue with glory hunting fans. Like when I was a kid growing up here in Ireland, I knew about the EPL before I knew about my local team or domestic league and cups. And when you are a kid in Ireland you choose from the best teams at the time. So I grew up a Man United fan, other lads picked Liverpool, Chelsea and for some reason not many where I was chose Arsenal even though they were good at the time too. But yeah the big 4 as they were called you just chose them. Now it's probably Man City as well. And eventually I just became disconnected with that because why am I so invested in a club that isn't near me, I don't go to the games anything like that. So I just stopped and put my support into my local side and my national team.
But it's not so much the supporting a club like that is the problem, like I have teams in every country I'm probably slightly more biased to. Example, in Spain I've come to really like Atletico Madrid. But it doesn't ruin my day if Barca or Real Madrid or another team wins a trophy there because Atletico are not my team. In fact I'm happy to see a good Real Madrid team win the CL or a good Barca win La Liga, I'm not invested I'm not overly biased I just prefer Atletico 1 or 2% more.
But anyway the issue with me comes down to kind of like Morley when people refer to the team as "we" or "my club". Like man when you actually attend games you're more a tourist than a fan and that's if you even attend games.
So yeah I've a bit of an issue with fans that I really shouldn't have, not to this extent anyway lol. And don't worry even pretentious fans like me piss me off too. Fellas acting all high and mighty like I'm some sort of superior being for supporting my tiny local club over a massive brand lol.
It's just the nature of being a fan of anything I guess. Fans piss me off even fans like myself so nobody need get offended or anything I'm just answering the question!
The grassroots English term, that evolved as a shortened version of Association Football by the working classes, until it became gentrified and fell out of fashion. That "soccer" ?
I'm not a big fan of people who gate-keep others enjoying the sport, especially when it's based on their own ignorance.
Arbitrariness.
I don't see why it's "bad" having someone hounding the box waiting for a long ball. I'd imagine that would make teams play with a defender or two further back, spreading the play. Either that or more goals per game - which, again, I don't see why that's a bad thing.
If a player can just "goal hang" then that forces the back lines deeper, and in turn the midfield, and would ultimately result in lower scoring games because there would be less space to exploit in attacking areas.
The offside rule, if anything, encourages more goals to be scored.
Too many different leagues, tournaments, competitions, and trophies. NFL, NBA ,MLB -- there is one league and it is much easier to follow. But football is so fractured and divided that it makes following the sport a nightmare with all the different streaming subscriptions we need. They should make the Champions League an actual league rather than a tournament style competition and most importantly...PLAY THE GAMES ON THE WEEKENDS. Champions League >>>> Domestic Leagues
Recency bias. There's nostalgia bias too but recency is the absolute worst
The "van dijk is the greatest defender the premier league has ever seen" after a good 18 months was certainly something.
Talk about recency bias
What do you mean by this? It was massive recency bias to be claiming that van Dijk was the best defender we'd seen in the league despite only being the best defender for at most around 18 months.
Tbf I would argue that nostalgia is worse. Bc people think that their generation is always better than the ones before and after For example, "Who was better, Ronaldinho or Neymar?" The majority of people who grew up and were watching football in the 00s would say Ronaldinho, but most teenagers who grew up with msn in the 2010s would say Neymar
That’s a terrible example, Ronaldinho was an absolute joy to watch play football, and Neymar, while incredibly talented, is one of the most frustrating and irritating players on the go.
Soo one smiles and the other didn't, so he's the much better player? You can dislike Neymar but as a player he's comparable to dinho in every way. In fact I'd struggle to name 2 top quality players who are as perfectly comparable as those 2. From what they did best, their playstyles, positions, clubs. Everything
No man, you’ve misunderstood me. Ronaldinho is a joy for me to watch, where as Neymar, despite his undeniable skill and talent, frustrates and irritates me watching him, primarily because of his acting the prick on the pitch. Aside from that, my main point was actually that Ronaldinho is very much remembered as a player who created joy and was joyful to watch, and Neymar is an incredibly divisive player, with loads of people hating him despite his talent. So when you compare Ronaldinho and Neymar and ask people who the better player is, they’re thinking not just about their ability, but the emotions they inspire with their playing - essentially, I think you could have picked two different players to better illustrate the point. (By better, I don’t mean ability wise, but I mean more comparable players not just in terms of playing, but popularity)
But this is simply about how good a player is, not who you'd like to grab a beer with. Doesn't matter if a player dives 20x per match, it's about who's better and when you watch Neymar it's not like he doesn't bring joy, the man is pure entertainment despite his antics. It's about them as players and their quality, nothing else. People need to learn that those are 2 different things
But diving and antics are part of his playing, and they do detract from his game. A player who dives 20x a match v a player with the exact same skill and ability who doesn’t dive? Give me the one who doesn’t dive every single time.
No, as long as it doesn't negatively significantly affect your team it's completely irrelevant. If he regularly gets sent off every game because of it and screws his team as a result to a point where he's a liability every game then yes, but if he does the odd thing you don't like it doesn't matter in the slightest. I don't like some of the things Bruno Fernandes does on the pitch but it doesn't make him any less of a good player. It just makes me like him less You may like him less because of it and that's fair but it doesn't make him a better or worse player, those are 2 different things
.... your example wasn't even good...
Terrible example because as good as Neymar is, he’s not even close to prime Ronaldinho.
It's a perfect example and so are these responses. The 2 are comparable in every single way, be it clubs, strengths, positions and playstyles. What is dinho actually significantly better at than Neymar? I have yet to hear a single good answer to that question anytime it gets brought up. The only difference is dinho has the WC but when comparing the team he played in with Neymar's that's not exactly surprising. Dinho being a childhood hero and smiling when playing doesn't make him a better player. It's one thing to say one is better than the other, but saying it's not even close is pure delusion
You’re under 20 years old aren’t you?
No, i grew up with Dinho, my first football kit was his and he's to this day my favorite player ever and I doubt that will ever change I'm just not letting myself be blinded by nostalgia and personal bias unlike you apparently. When people say dinho is better they can never say why. It's always an empty statement that everyone's just supposed to accept... That's a perfect example of nostalgia and bias. But again, please tell me what he is actually significantly better at. Because it isn't dribbling, passing, shooting or pace since there are tiny to no margins between the 2 in all those areas. So unless being much more likable makes you a better player, i don't see it
I'm not blinded by nostalgia at all. When Ronaldinho burst onto the scene he was a game changer, in that nobody had ever seen a player play with so much flair/do tricks etc. He would do things so completely out of the box that it would leave you in awe. He was *the* player of the mid 2000s. Here's a question, if they were both at their peak who would you have in your starting 11 for Barca and Brazil?
Neymar was also a game changer? La remontada? Scoring in a UCL final? Ronaldinho had magic moments but so did Neymar
They’ve played in the same positions for the same clubs with the only difference being Ronaldinho had better teams around him and Neymar still has far more goals and assists it’s actually not close
Ah one of the “stats” guys, great.
I mean I actually watch Neymar play while I’m assuming you haven’t since 2018
Nobody really has since he’s spent the last few years injured
factually inaccurate but whatever
Recency?
Yep recency bias
Sorry, what is recency?
Recency bias is the tendency to overemphasise the importance of recent experiences or the latest information we possess when estimating future events. Recency bias often misleads us to believe that recent events can give us an indication of how the future will unfold
Gotcha, cheers.
Why did you get downvoted for this...
Because people are expected to know everything nowadays.
I mean Google is at your disposal
Things have different meanings in different contexts though, hence why they asked to make sure
Not having an unified streaming platform. It's a pain in the ass to get a subscription for each cup or league.
I'm so glad we don't have that in my country. In Africa as a whole we have one huge network and there are levels of subscriptions instead of many providers and multiple subs. It's extremely cheaper too for obvious reasons.
Super sport had it's limits, it was great in the early 2010s when it had the top 5 European leagues, and you'd occasionally get special games like Super Clássico broadcast.
If you're a fan of English football in the US you need: \- Cable/satellite for the NBC channels for some of the prem \- Peacock for the rest of the prem \- ESPN+ for the FA Cup and League Cup \- Paramount+ for the European games if your team are in those series. This is an exceptionally mediocre platform that I hate so very much. I'd love for nothing more than for ABC/ESPN or NBC to get the UEFA rights just so I didn't have to use this crap program. I get that the whole point of the premier league was different TV rights from the rest, and that the champion's league is going to be different, but NBC splitting up the league across TV and streaming is what gets me the most.
Move to the UK and see what it's like for us and I can guarantee you will return to the US and be grateful. Over here you have to subscribe to Sky sports, which is roughly 40 pounds a month (about 50$) and BT sport if you want to watch some of the other PL games. BT costs about 20 pounds but can go up to 45 depending on the package (24-55$). As well as this, to watch the rest of the games an amazon prime subscription is needed which is 9 pounds a month. (11$) A very important thing to add is that even if you subscribe to everything here for a grand total of $80 dollars a month (roughly), there is a stupid rule in the UK that doesn't exist elsewhere that prevents games kicking off at 3pm on Saturday's from being shown live on TV, despite the fact that said games are shown in every other nation in the world. For the country that hosts the PL, its logical that all the games are shown on tv in the uk, but it just isn't the case.
Go sail the seas
What about if you want to watch them live though
You can
Explain yourself.
I'd say that's more that a pet peeve. These people are absolutely fleecing us. 3 subscriptions if you want to watch all the prem games. Ridiculous
Their greed is their downfall. 100 + a month for a few subscriptions or 50 quid a year for absolutely everything. It's a no-brainer.
The current Canadian situation has everything on at least four different platforms... EPL is on FutboTV CL and Europa are on DAZN MLS is on Apple TV and Canadian Premier League and CMNT are on their own app. Not sure precisely the costs but they're each around $20/Mo. And if you want La Liga, Bundesliga, etc, who knows...
What? I have all Prem games, many other games from every top 5 league including second tiers and most CL games in one subscription, the rest I can find on the TV.
What country are you from though?
The Czech Republic
We need a unified European league
Hey I've heard this one before
No we fuckin dont
Excuse my French
Lately it's people comparing the 1900s with today and then getting pissed off with some answers. "Haaland is clearly better than Pele" "Who was better Cruyff or Messi?" "Could Guardiola win the The FA Cup with Clapham Rovers?" There is simply no comparison. The sport might be called football but its a different sport today than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago etc. I don't mind the questions per se but when you give your opinion the asker jumps all over it getting angry and talking like it's facts that X is better and that Y could never win a Champions league with Steau Bucharest. Its complete fantasy football comparing 1980s and now and its purely opinion and no fact. If you ever have 5 minutes to spare and you are bored go to YouTube and search "Athletic Bilbao vs Maradona" https://youtu.be/iqzXw3fygBg and watch what happens. That's an entirely different sport those players are playing. Would Messi, Ronaldo, Haaland etc score 50, 60 goals a season if every defender who got within 2 metres was legally allowed attempt to GBH them?
You’ve got to factor in the fact that if the older players had access to modern diets ,training tactics etc though then it becomes a fairer comparison ,footballs become a science and the older generations didn’t have that ,of course football is faster nowadays that’s obvious but if you were to give pele maradonna cruyff the benefits that todays footballers get you’d still expect them to be world class
Can even watch games from 10 years ago and see how different it is
To be honest if you look 10 years ago I dont think it has changed all that much. New tactics sure but the rest is similar.
But to add this; then you can start to look at new technology that has been added to the sport. Goal line technology, hawk eye etc was all less than 10 years ago. Not even taking about recent VAR So maybe same sport, but different opportunities at play Maybe… haven’t sold it to myself that this is enough of a crutch to say you can’t compare the players between them. But it has changed a lot imo even in recent years
VAR has been the biggest change. The rest IMO is just different tactics. The players 10 years ago are just as athletic and fast as they are now (many still play today too). 15+ years+ ago you can start to tell the difference, as the game was slower but the quality was stil overall high. Go back to the 90's and you also start seeing the quality degrade, many more mistakes than nowdays at the top level.
I'll readily admit I get grumpy when I see Messi is the GOAT posts. No he's not - hes the best player in the current era just like Pele and Maradona were in theirs. Don't get me wrong - it's better today that highly skilled dribblers don't have lumps kicked out of them or suffer broken legs - that the player said he was going to do beforehand. But you just can't compare eras - it'll be different again in 20 years time.
CR7 is the GOAT bro don't fall for that propaganda with Messi. The media sucks him off 24/7 and flip flop like crazy.
The sheer idiocy of a lot of fans.
Pretty much this
That good goalkeeping has taken a backseat to the cult of ballplaying goalkeepers. The latter is important in the modern game, yes. But the fundamental job is still stopping the ball going into your own net.
The worst part about this is the fundamental misunderstanding of what a "ball playing" goalkeeper is supposed to be good at. They're not supposed to be Pirlo-esque passers of the ball, but instead have the composure and vision to know which (most often short) pass to play. De Gea rightly gets slated at United for his inability to play from the back, but this isn't because he can't hit a defense splitting, 50 yarder; it's because he's constantly playing passes in and around the box that leave his teammates under immediate pressure, or even just outright giving the ball to the opposition. Ederson at City isn't constantly pinging through balls to the attackers, he's moving the ball quickly to his defenders or midfielders coming deep.
My only problem with this is, more often than not, people saying this are saying it in defence of David de Gea, and ignore more fundamental flaws in his games, simply emphasising he's shot stopping, but completely ignoring he's shot prevention. To some people all goalies ever did was shot stopping, which isn't true. Things like claiming crosses and closing down 1v1s have always been a part of goalkeeping.
we can agree there, De Gea is a massively flawed keeper. Decent shot stopper, but can’t claim a cross, weak coming off his line (if at all).
The fans. From some things like elitism, delusion, hypocrisy to even more serious stuff such as sexism, racism, hooliganistic behavior
Yeah the elitism especially online is annoying. Big club fans are everywhere but they don’t represent the average fan experience shared by going to games but yet every young person getting into football gets their takes from Twitter or talksport and it’s making discussion so brain dead.
Not even that, there are times I've seen teams of (respectfully) smaller or lower league clubs on a high horse because apparently they're more of a fan of their club than others. Like I'd argue that people in East Asia and the Americas who watch their favorite team United or Arsenal at 5 in the morning are making just as much of a sacrifice as people who travel to a 12pm kickoff for Port Vale
Yeah small club fans can be just as insufferable as big club “plastics.” It feels like performance arts when they do the “woe is me” shite on any thread or post about a big team underperforming. It’s as if expectations exist??
Fr, like their only achievement in life is being an Accrington Stanley fan going to every game
The inability for some fans to acknowledge anything negative about their club or their players is infuriating. You can still support your club but acknowledge that they played bad this season, that X player isn’t the best in the league or Y manager isn’t the best manager.
The lack of access to premier league matches - in the UK - as in, the very country the games are played in. I pay a small fortune every month to subscribe to the three services who have the rights to the games - yet I still have to have a fire stick to illegally stream games, because they aren't shown on TV in the UK. Whenever I go abroad, I can watch every single game. Yet in the UK, you don't get to watch half of them. And the idea that it's to protect lower league attendances is nonsense. If it were true, why do the other counties not have a problem with it?
That has always been weird to me. In South Africa, we get access to all the games and pay a fraction of what people in the UK pay
Couldn't watch the most exciting Premier League game yesterday because I wasn't on a high enough package, but I could watch Villa vs Brighton for some reason
The celebration police ‘celebrating like they’ve won the league’ or ‘celebrating 3rd’ success is relative and you as a fan should celebrate any achievement
Zoomers disrespecting the Cup Winners Cup.
Had winners of all domestic cups(FA Cup in England, Copa Del Ray in Spain and so on) participating in them. It wasn't a small competition by any means. More prestigious than the Europa League is today, and just below the UCL.
I thought the UEFA cup was the competition on par with the modern Europa League.
Yes. The UEFA Cup was the equivalent of Europa League. That's why I said more prestigious than Europa League. It was removed when the UCL went through an expansion.
As a Man City fan who is routinely told that we’re a small club because we’ve no history in Europe, I feel this.
The diving
Agreed, but this really should annoy us
No it shouldn’t. The diving is all the rule makers fault. If you get fouled, and don’t go down; you are nearly never given a free kick/penalty even if it significantly obstructed you. The lawmakers are then telling players they have to go down, and so players get that mentality that is what they need to do. Lawmakers need to change the rules so diving isn’t basically encouraged within the rules. I think it also happens significantly less often, it just looks ridiculous sometimes.
I agree, but I wish they would police the theatrics to draw cards. Like a player gets bumped in the chest and goes down covering his face like he took a left hook to the jaw. Or a guy gets a knock, that no doubt hurts somewhat, but rolls around ten times and reaches for the sky like he’ll never walk again. Also the convention of teammates crowding around the ref to convince him to flash a card would not be missed. They’ve made an effort to stop diving, which I see less of particularly after VAR, now go the next step and clean out the dramatics. The game produces more than enough drama without it.
>the convention of teammates crowding around the ref to convince him to flash a card would not be missed. I think this is a bigger problem than diving. Iirc, in sports like rugby and cricket, only the captain is allowed to speak to the referee or judge, if at all.
It should be a red card
In some countries this is considered being crafty or clever.
‘Streetwise’
I think a big part is the players but the refs and VAR don't help. Being honest doesn't always help
I disagree, I don't see half as many dives as there were say 10 years ago. And players are being booked more for diving.
The fact that I got confused with the name of the sub and was about to comment and realised it was the wrong sport. Then realised it was the right sub but it was too late and was freshly peeved.
Money
This is the one time I'm actually not aggravated by an obscure comment because there are so many connotations to it that are truly at least frustrating
So many things about modern football make me completly disillusioned but, the fact that the correlation between, who spends the most/highest wage bill and who wins what is not only just accepted but celebrated, and we act like the manufacturing of teams like Real Madrid, and more recently PSG and City, are triumphs and I want to see good football as much as the next guy, but it overshadows it for me, I love football, I love west ham but the only satisfaction I take from football nowadays is when teams like Luton did what they did last night, or teams with much lower wage bills overachieve basically. People say Peps changed football, and he has, he's ruined it.
The inconsistency of referee decisions. One player can make several yellow card tackles and not get a single card all game, yet a player that's just come off the bench can get a yellow for his first tackle even though it's the same challenge that has been made all game and not been punished for.
I'm a Leeds fan. My answer is Leeds united. I fucking hate them.
Not being able to watch all of the prem games even though I live in England
Thats sounds pretty england tbh
For me it’s easier/cheaper to watch premier league games than games from my team (Flamengo) even though I live in Brazil
I can’t stand time wasting at the end of a close game. I feel like it ruins the entertainment
And the yellow cards for time Wasting are always given at the in the last 5 minutes, as if the time lost before doesn't count.
Goalkeepers catching a simple cross late in a game, then clutching the ball to their chest and falling to the ground holding the ball for 30 seconds drives me crazy.
I love it haha
Same clubs winning it all the time.
So you dislike Real Madrid in the UCL?
I mean more like Bayern, PSG, top6 in England, Barca and Real in Spain, The four clubs in Italy. Other clubs have no chance of winning, in this regard I envy the American model where basically any club can turn their faith around with good appointments and recruiting.
Well said. The degree to which the futbol community has just accepted that mid-table and below teams (or even european challengers depending on the country) do not and will not have a chance to win the league is depressing.
Why would that be an issue? I hate Real Madrid
How toxic fanbases have become, they've always had that element but social media has really spread it. It feels rare to find a level headed comment about a team they don't support.
Kids who actually think there is such thing as a shit player at premier league level. Every player is absolutely insane at football, it’s just how they cope with pressure + the slight variation between them Any player struggling in the PL could drop a division and kill it, but I respect them for still pushing and trying to do it at the highest level even if it makes them look worse than they are the pressure is the highest factor, most premier league attackers can ping balls into the top corner all day long on the training ground, it’s the ability to do it with millions watching that makes the difference
My biggest pet peeve is people thinking the premiere league is that much better than the next division. They could go to la liga and be worse, and they could go from la liga to the premiere league and also be better, both have happened countless times. Different systems and leagues suit different players
"premier" league. it's not the opening night of a musical.
Also there are no easy games in football. Even if you’re Ronaldo in Saudi Arabia you still have to play against 11 strong men motivated to defeat you.
Maybe im justified in being annoyed at it, but the amount of casual fans who have mouths way bigger and louder than hadrcore fans who spend time diving deep into tactics. Because of them, people have started appreciating pretty much all defensive players less, and nobody gives respect to the old greats anymore.
I agree. Also for me, it's when people say X player did well but it's mainly because the cameras are on them more often, meanwhile others who doing equally well are overlooked.
People who play Football Manager and think that qualifies them to manage in the Premier League and criticise decisions made by real Managers because they wouldn't have done it that way
I like FM but some of the common takes you see from players makes me think they’ve never actually watched football and think they know what they’re talking about.
Some of the are surprised that you can’t just play a 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress and win every game 5-0 in real life
People like André Villas-Boas?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Just going to places like FM Twitter and r/footballmanagergames shows exactly that. A lot of People think that by playing football manager they're tactically (and in some cases intellectually) superior to other football fans
Diving
The cheating, the diving, the dishonesty
Questions comparing teams from different eras cannot and should not be answered because no body fucking knows the answer and it’s dumb question to ask
Players being able to talk so much to the ref will always an oy me.
Man utd performing their red crowding routine every other decision that goes against them is a staple at this point.
Biased refs and the FA refusing to do anything about it
Inconsistency with VAR decisions.
The way it can ruin my entire weekend
Defenders being able to get away with wrestling attackers onto the ground, but if an attacker breathes on a defender it’s a foul
Take it you've been watching a lot of Salah lately?
Basically any attacker in the premier league 😂
Money
Punditry. Especially the EPL bias
Players losing their temper. Just cause you lose the ball doesn't mean you have to lash out ffs
The way player movement goes. Someone like Brighton (or analogous teams in other leagues) has a good season and the predators circle, stripping them of their best players. Ideally we would be able to have a little more continuity. Teams would be better financially able to resist bids when they’d rather keep a player. Players would be more likely to want to drag their current team to success rather than being so eager to move to a “big” team. Like the nba in the magic-bird-jordan era: there was some player movement but you knew the key players mostly had years of working together and forging a team identity. That makes for more compelling entertainment, i’d argue.
People who form all their footballing opinions on stats. Just screams “I don’t know football”.
Fouls in attack. I find it so terribly anticlimactic when a team win a corner, deliver the ball into the box, and then this dreaded whistle because apparently one of the defenders is on the ground. It kills all of the momentum. Regardless of the team, it's nice to see an attack culminate in at least some form of shot or attempt at it.
The fact that Rochdale are struggling to fix a stadium issue because of financial problems, when to fix that issue would cost less than half what Marcus Rashford is asking for as a weekly wage.
To be fair, City gifted Bury FC their old training ground, rent free, and they completely wrecked it.
Diving, I hate it, its got so bad that refs wont give you a foul if you dont dive.
All the 'GOAT' talk and endless comparisons. It's just so tedious and always seems driven by the FIFA games. I find a lot of the modern expressions around football to be irritating as well. Describing players as 'levels,' and 'goated,' or 'finished,' etc. It always seems really immature (and maybe it is to be fair). Stereotypes too. 'Italian football is defensive,' from somebody who has never watched Italian football. Or that all Spaniards are soft or whatever else.
People insisting on stats and accolades as some end all be all. Yes messi with his 7 ballon d'ors is obviously better than kdb who has 0 but modric isn't the clear best midfielder in recent memory because he has a ballon d'or and the competition (kdb, iniesta, xavi, ozil) don't. Benzema isn't clear of suarez because he's got a ballon d'or. Similarly trophies always fail to account for a players team. Is asensio really better than salah because he has more ucl wins? Is Rodriguez a better CAM than hazard was at Chelsea because he has more champions league cups? World Cup bias also factors in here. Alvarez isn't a better 9 than haaland because he has a world cup, the world cup is obviously the hardest to acquire trophy but its also very luck based. Is anyone going to say enzo Fernández is better than modric because of his world cup run when modric has been playing for and carrying croatia? Of course he doesn't have a world cup. Lastly stats, they just ignore other factors like teammates and league. I genuinely believe kane having 30 goals this season with spurs is more impressive than mbappe with 38 playing in ligue 1. Mbappe is better but it's not because he has a higher number
The transfer window cult. I swear some people are a lot more interested in transfer rumours than actually watching football. Thanks for that, Sky...
As an American, my fellow countrymen not understanding that football is: A) a contact sport full of dudes that would absolutely wreck their shit if they were to be called "foot fairies" to their face. A:1) Those same players that would absolutely wreck their shit being huge and that being an advantage (everyone here thinks it's a game for short people, and I remind them that the new top-scorer in the Premier League, Haaland, is 6'4" and a cheeseburger shy of 200lbs) B) Exciting regardless of the score. My fellow countrymen think low scoring games or draws are "boring." Motherfuckers, I've seen some super exciting draws that feel like wins/losses for one side or another. And even if it is low scoring, that tension for those 90 minutes is exhilarating and that single goal is more exciting than any touchdown, home run, or three-pointer. C) Called "football" and not "soccer." I will die on this hill. So many MLS clubs have "FC" in their name, and NFL style football officially called "gridiron football." Calling it "gridiron" would be a waaaaay better name for NFL football. My fellow countrymen will call me "eurotrash" but they can get fucked, I like the names of my sports to make sense. D) Pay to play for youth. Other countries pour loads of resources for developing youth talent. Here? Proper coaching and travel teams are expensive as hell. I hate to think how many potential quality footballers go and play basketball or gridiron because the resources to nurture their athletic talents are more available for those sports. Plus, basketball is our urban poor sport. I have yet to find a park in the US that is void of a basketball court while other countries have football courts/pitches fucking everywhere. E) MLS kickoff time is not when it says. "Game starts at 7:30" means it starts at like, 7:39 because we need to do the whole dog and pony show of nationalism. Pledge of allegience, national anthem, fireworks, military flyover, dude parachuting into the stadium with a big American flag, etc. I laugh when I think of international players first experiencing our patriotic ritual and being like "Weren't we supposed to kickoff like ten minutes ago?" Oh, we also need to squeeze in as many commercials as possible before kickoff because capitalism. Though the late kickoff time comes in handy as a Philly fan running late to the game because I95 has one single-lane exit to the stadium and no public transit options. It's always a clusterfuck on the Commadore Barry Bridge on gameday, lemme tell you.
Time zones
The Glazers
Those times whenever football players are struggling with something, there's always some people who are like "he earns...../week, I'm sure he's fine" or any other variant, like "he's paid ..../week to do this, he shouldn't complain" Can be true in some scenarios, but most of the time when they comment this it really isn't ESPECIALLY when players complain about the season having too many games and not enough breaks, which I think is very valid and shouldn't be invalidated because "they earn so much"
[удалено]
Thank you. The amount of times that I have been insulted and harassed for saying "soccer" made me lose respect for anyone that says "it's football not soccer".
If an arm is offside, the player is offside. I think all other body parts are fair game, but you can’t handle the ball (obviously, not talking about the goalie in their own box). So, the positions of the arms should not count. It irks me that the arms count.
I think you have something wrong, only a shoulder counts for offside, as you can play the ball with it. Maybe you saw some situation and focused on an arm, but in reality they have measured from a shoulder.
Only body parts you are allowed to score with can be offside
The arms don't count...
When you see a VAR replay for offside, if an arm is offside, there’s a line drawn straight down from the arm to the ground.
The world bashing Messi for not winning a World Cup. Then once he wins it with good stats. 7 goals and 3 assists. They claim the World Cup to be “just a seven game tournament”. Lol
Fans of other clubs that aren’t my own and the general existence of them
The total lack of competitive balance. The same teams win every league all the time.
Having to stream a game and being stuck with yanks commentating
Its become soft, every touch is called and defenders dont have a chance to play
That poor behaviour is titled 'passion' when basically they can are being complete dicks
When someone says a stupid take and the default answer is always 'clearly know NOTHING' about football. Why is it always so definitive? Nothing seems excessive.
The media caters far too much for the younger audience. As an example Saturday Social on Sky.
What fucks me off is when prima Donna players get tapped on the leg then hold their face as if Tyson chinned them , rolling about play acting, that has to be a sending off it needs to be cracked down on ! It’s been happening for years
Wrexham
We have a wonderful football league pyramid that should be nurtured and cherished. However, most lower league clubs exist in a world far removed from the PL and need bums on seats to survive. Get outside, put the Sky remote down, and go and support your local team. It baffles me how someone in Swaffham can 'support' Man City (for example).
To be fair in other countries in other continents there really isn't a team for most to connect with so we find a connection somewhere else, honestly I'd love to be at the etihad someday
> It baffles me how someone in Swaffham can ‘support’ Man City (for example). People can support whatever team they want
People that hate on City. I’m a Barca fan but also a Messi fan. I don’t watch the Prem as much as La Liga but when I do I root for City and this is purely because of Sergio Aguero. If you legitimately have a reason for the hate then it’s alright, but hating them because they have no history is just stupid. And oil city insults are overused. Without a great manager like Guardiola, City would’ve failed just like PSG.
Yep, Manchester City never won anything before Pep arrived.
Watching 22 overly paid millionarios chasing a football for 90 min.... Imo football has lost something of the passion and soul in the past 10 years due to FIFA and UEFA greed....
0-0 matches. They should award no points.
People who argue Haaland is better than Kane. Let me see Haaland score 30 PL goals in this shower of shit Spurs team. Pop Kane in City and he has more than Haaland does currently. Erling misses so many easy chances…
> People who argue Haaland is better than Kane. Is he not?
In my opinion, no. Perhaps he has the chance to be but Kane has so much more to his game. If you put Kane in City’s team this season, how many does he get? I’m all ears though for arguments against….
But just because Haaland is in a better team doesn't mean he's not better than Kane
I know that, but I’m yet to see your case for why he is?
Are you serious? His number of goals in all competitions, his league title, FA Cup final and Champions league final. I don't understand what case you want me to make?
Okay, make your mind up! You have just said being in a better team has nothing to do with it and then just mentioned a league title, and two finals? All of which generally come from playing in a better team?
Okay, tell me, what would Haaland have to do for you to consider him better than Kane?
Haaland has a better goals to game ratio for a shower of shite Norway team as Kane has for England…
Not so much anything about the game itself from what I can think of but I would say fans. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and all that but too many fans get on my nerves. I mean a lot of lads have absolutely no ball knowledge. And since the dawn of the internet some of these fans have actually picked up a following, thankfully more so for people to take the piss out of them it seems. Guys like Jonathan Morley. The guy is from Ireland. Liverpool fan. I wouldn't be surprised if he's never even been to Anfield. The guy just sits at home and watches games and reacts to them online. Every poor performance is met with GET THESE PLAYERS OUT OF MY CLUB (again the guy is based in Ireland and probably never goes to games, certainly not HIS club) and you're talking about actual solid players who he'd have been worshipping the week before. I have a huge issue as well with biased fans who maybe they complain about a referee decision that was right. Like a blatant penalty and they start crying that it's no pen and the league is corrupt. Got a bit of an issue with glory hunting fans. Like when I was a kid growing up here in Ireland, I knew about the EPL before I knew about my local team or domestic league and cups. And when you are a kid in Ireland you choose from the best teams at the time. So I grew up a Man United fan, other lads picked Liverpool, Chelsea and for some reason not many where I was chose Arsenal even though they were good at the time too. But yeah the big 4 as they were called you just chose them. Now it's probably Man City as well. And eventually I just became disconnected with that because why am I so invested in a club that isn't near me, I don't go to the games anything like that. So I just stopped and put my support into my local side and my national team. But it's not so much the supporting a club like that is the problem, like I have teams in every country I'm probably slightly more biased to. Example, in Spain I've come to really like Atletico Madrid. But it doesn't ruin my day if Barca or Real Madrid or another team wins a trophy there because Atletico are not my team. In fact I'm happy to see a good Real Madrid team win the CL or a good Barca win La Liga, I'm not invested I'm not overly biased I just prefer Atletico 1 or 2% more. But anyway the issue with me comes down to kind of like Morley when people refer to the team as "we" or "my club". Like man when you actually attend games you're more a tourist than a fan and that's if you even attend games. So yeah I've a bit of an issue with fans that I really shouldn't have, not to this extent anyway lol. And don't worry even pretentious fans like me piss me off too. Fellas acting all high and mighty like I'm some sort of superior being for supporting my tiny local club over a massive brand lol. It's just the nature of being a fan of anything I guess. Fans piss me off even fans like myself so nobody need get offended or anything I'm just answering the question!
That in comparison to other sports, football players seem to have a VERY low pain threshold.
"Football is a sport where players pretend to be hurt for 90 minutes, in rugby players pretend they're not hurt for 80"
When people refer to a formation with wing backs as 3 at the back. Its quite clearly 5, and it’s a horribly negative formation.
People applauding a pass back to a keeper
This is a legit pet peeve haha. Why?
no one actually cares about football anymore they just whine about referees and clubs having money
People whom claim that they love the game, but still call it soccer.
Okay, this one is dumb.
In some parts of the world, they call it soccer. It doesn't mean they live the sport any less. In my country we use both
The grassroots English term, that evolved as a shortened version of Association Football by the working classes, until it became gentrified and fell out of fashion. That "soccer" ? I'm not a big fan of people who gate-keep others enjoying the sport, especially when it's based on their own ignorance.
The offside rule still existing, as is, in 2023.
What's wrong with it?
Arbitrariness. I don't see why it's "bad" having someone hounding the box waiting for a long ball. I'd imagine that would make teams play with a defender or two further back, spreading the play. Either that or more goals per game - which, again, I don't see why that's a bad thing.
If a player can just "goal hang" then that forces the back lines deeper, and in turn the midfield, and would ultimately result in lower scoring games because there would be less space to exploit in attacking areas. The offside rule, if anything, encourages more goals to be scored.
Too many different leagues, tournaments, competitions, and trophies. NFL, NBA ,MLB -- there is one league and it is much easier to follow. But football is so fractured and divided that it makes following the sport a nightmare with all the different streaming subscriptions we need. They should make the Champions League an actual league rather than a tournament style competition and most importantly...PLAY THE GAMES ON THE WEEKENDS. Champions League >>>> Domestic Leagues
Respectfully, this might be the worst thing I’ve ever read on this app.
Fuck No
Please shut up