lads am I just a millennio-boomer nostalgia fagoot or has football changed in such a way that we aren't really getting players like we used to, you know, the kind that directed the ball into the net with the power of imagination?
the players these days are way more fit, more athletic, more powerful, etc. and the tactics are more rationalized, but when you used to turn on the tv to see Kakà dribbling through 4 of whatever overpriced clowns Inter was fielding that week or Del Piero or Di Natale curling it in from 25 metres or even sad past-it Ronaldinho at Milan doing tricks that didn't help the team at all, it's a bit hard to get excited over tactics focused on statistical efficiency and players who either can't or aren't allowed to do anything fun
i also feel the tactical battles were more interesting because there was more genuine variation in styles
it also doesn't help that so many teams are owned by burgers and friendly, polite chinese people now
all feels a bit dry and globohomogenized
call me a fagoot if warranted, but it just doesn't feel quite the same