Howdy again folks,
I always hark back to the days when football players were football players and not celebrities and money orientated. I personally don’t think players today are motivated as they used to be. They got a hard wage and fought hard for it. Now they are paid in their millions and seem not too bothered to do anything more than what is standardily asked of them. Maybe I am just getting old, but hard graft was more important than a wage. Of course I don’t want to debase their wages, but the pleasure of playing was better than a higher paid job. You take this Ade chap, as he is known. He seems to come on when money is discussed or he is moving to another club, then he seems to settle down to count his money, rather than concentrate on the game in hand. He is a player that doesn’t seem to have pride in him. He is a typical mercenary. Goes where the money is, rather than the loyality. Of course we can’t totally blame the players, most of the blame must go to the system, clubs and rich owners. But then we grow up to what is around us and take that for granted, not what was acceptable and the done thing in the past. They say as time goes on it gets better, but does it? Now is now, and that is all that is important.
I wonder what the young and old think on here?
Ok Don, I will share my thoughts as I would place myself in the middle (40 is not so far away now).
When looking at old and new footballers there are a number of factors which comes into play. Training, health (from a general society sense), fitness, technology, medicine, tactics, nutrition etc. etc. Each of these has an impact on the kind of players that are produced. The players of the past were slower, less healthy, the training was not as effective, the knowledge of nutrition, rest and response to injury are all things which clearly separate the two eras of footballers.
Take a player from the past and place his upbringing today and he would be a completely different player, exactly the same as those of today. Vice versa and the same would apply.
So I agree to blame the actual footballers themselves is of no value. We have to look at the environment itself if we are to establish the reasons for these differences. But before doing that we have to decide what it is we are hoping to be different and would it be worth it anyway?
The game today is faster, more skillful and tactically more advanced. You may not think so, but it is true. If it were not true, you could set up you team to play in exactly the same way that Spurs played during the glory days (actually take the best players of today and get them to play at the same speed, tackle the same way, position themselves etc. etc. and they would be torn apart by any premiership side. They were the best at what they did at the time, but football has moved on.
You also hear a lot about players not being motivated and that money and celebrity status is the cause for the decline (decline of what, I am still not sure) but every single player in the premiership trained for over 10,000 hours in order to be good enough to be professional, more if you want to be the greatest. On top of that you also need a little luck and the more talent you have the better you will be. That means from the age of 6 to 16, that is 3 hours every day, minimum! If you don't do that, you are stacking shelves.
So the idea that these players are unmotivated human beings, is ridiculous. Now whether or not, once the money came in, some players do not continue to train as hard, I am not sure. I am certain that if during training they did not work hard, it would show in their performance, the manager would not pick those players, they would have a reputation amongst the players for being lazy. When a player is out on the pitch, do you think they consciously think, I am getting paid great money so today I will only give 80% today? Or do you think that the child that fought and trained every day, trying to be the best, to win every game, continues to do so in every competition he plays in. Because I do not get paid anything for the sports that I play and OI always play to win. Money is a side issue and only the most shallow of people make it the thing that actually matters.
Ask Ade if he has pride in what he does? Tell him you think he does not have any and see what his response is. He has a family, has suffered with a number of tragedies over the past few years and I do not expect him to be kind in his response. His whole life has been about coming from nothing and making the best of his life. It is easy to say from the outside that he looks like he is not trying, but that is about your perception. In fact it is this point that is actually the key issue. It is all about the way that our perception has changed, not the actual footballers themselves.
The world has changed in many ways, (but still the same in all the wrong ways), you have changed, you are not the same as when you watched it thee first time, you have grown older, your experiences over time and how you have perceived the changes occur have left you looking back to the past wondering why things cannot be the way they were, when things were great. But in truth, I will do the same (in some ways I already do, being in the middle as I am) but know it will become more profound as the time goes on. I will want things to be more like footballs coming home, or the Gaza free kick, and programs like only fools and horses, or moments of hope like the Anti-war march etc. etc. The world itself is now more materialistic, about celebrity status and useless tv programs and more endless wars! So until society starts to take a step in the right direction and we as people in this society start changing how we see the world around us, then things like how we see footballers, will only ever reflect the way we see society as a whole.
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