SEE YOU! A brand spanking new modern fitba thread 2021/22

Ronaldo is eminently capable of not scoring

 

Lot of fuckin DOSSERS in that dressing room alright.

Harry Maguire always looks like some guy who just pissed away the family inheritance on a bad poker hand.

 

Good quality analysis by his Gingerness

 

PAUL "Fred Dibnah" Scholes

 

Jesus christ...

https://twitter.com/marnienash/status/1452663078416535579?s=24

 

I love the look the host gives. I imagine normally they're pretty good at putting on a poker face even if they know the answers as they can't give anything away. He couldn't help himself. Neither of the contestants noticed anyway.

 

He probably thinks Juvenal and Ajax were ancient Greek football teams

 

Ha ha

Fuck off

 

This is much more like it

 

Another random question from a novice: How good was George Best? Where does he rank all time?

 

He wouldn't add up to too much today but the guys today learned how to play from him and Pele, that's always been my opinion, in much the same way as if there is no Dempsey and Joe Louis, there is no modern boxing.


After George Best, the flair player wasn't just accepted, he was necessary. Best became the standard, the norm. You were expected to be able to play with some degree of flair and players who showed flair and did it outside of "team orders" had a lot more leeway.

Prior to that, those sort of players just got fired or sidelined.

Best was a groundbreaker in terms of style, talent, and how to use those two factors to defeat physically imposing players who engaged crude tactics on cruder playing surfaces.

Pele for all his brilliance could still be caught and "Done". Best was a brilliant runner with a ball - a heavy ball on a heavy surface - and could ship major hits as he went.

Best combined an ability to resist punishment with the wherewithal to persevere with his own talent simultaneously.

He was also a cunt, just in case you wanted to know.

 

Good post but I'd say Best would still be way too talented to not have a significant impact at world level. Maybe not the same, as like you say he was ahead of his time, but he would still be a world class player today. His feints were other-worldly and match up to any of the best players in the modern era. Ultimately his time at the top would still be short-lived I imagine as he's always going to succumb to the same demons.

 

His highlights alone are super impressive, even to a novice like me you can tell straight away he's a special talent.

I agree with Whiskey's opinion that the truly exceptional athletes are era-proof, and would find a way to adapt and thrive regardless of era.

I'm looking at clips of Pele, and Best, and it's impossible to imagine them being bums today.

 

Yep, the game and tactics change a lot era to era but the greats of the game would be successful in any time.

 

I think it's different for different sports.

Boxing and football are two sports where the greats yesteryear can still compete and win today.

In a sport like basketball, it'd admittedly be hard for a great from the 60s to compete today because the game has changed soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo dramatically. It's essentially a different sport.

There hasn't been as many dramatic changes in boxing/football... not to the extent where they look like different sports.

 

You always get loads on that show. The other day someone was asked 'in which country would you find Loch Lomond' and responded with 'The Lake District'.

MTF

 

Another recent classic was 'in which Dutch city would you find the International Court of Justice'? Some plum said 'Belgium'.

MTF

 

The guy is a teacher too...

 

Yeah I'd agree with that. I think in say sports like basketball, big changes would be more pronounced as it's 5-a-side. In football in 11-a-side Matches a team can drastically change a style of play but individual brilliance can still be utilised effectively (when a manager knows what he's doing), if that makes sense?

 

Jesus fuck.

MTF

 

I tend to agree that Best and his game would still thrive nowadays with all today's advantages that the modern pro enjoys, and would probably last longer with club minders and staff who might curtail his self indulgent and addictive tendencies...but he would still succumb and his career would barely reach his 30th year

 

Yep, the likes of Best and Gazza just can't be saved from themselves at the end of the day.

 

For team sports nothing compares to basketball in terms of the impact single player can have. Hockey is only five a side (plus keeper) but drafting a once in a generation talent isn't likely to immediately turn the franchise around like it does in basketball. Drafting a a Shaquille O'Neal or Lebron James is like hitting the jackpot.

Also due to the differences in the financial aspect, at club level you'll never see the best football player in the game on a shit team anyway.

 

I dunno, Haaland is at Dortmund...








...

 

I do agree though. I'm a novice when it comes to basketball but I follow when I can. It seems like Steph Curry and the new emphasis on 3-pointers caused big changes in the NBA and I saw Reed mention in a different thread that that change rendered some players who would have been dominant in previous eras near-obsolete now. I'm going off memory here so I might have got that wrong, but yeah there are big tactical developments and changes in football such as catennacio, Total Football, Tiki Taka, gegenpress etc but there's always room in a system for any type of player.

 

Three point line was introduced in 1979. I wouldn't expect everyone to just start chucking them up once the rule went into place but it's kind of strange how long it took for teams to really use it as a weapon. Yeah it's a lower percentage shot but 3 is greater than 2.

"Back in the day" even the best shooters in the league didn't attempt all that many. I saw some stats one time that were really surprising. I haven't watched much bball since the 90's so i don't know if this simply an improved way to play that will be permanent or if in the future there will be less of it.

 

You're 100% accurate on basketball, and it's why I'm no longer an NBA fan.

The balance is totally gone, and the game has become nothing more than just a bunch of perimeter players that chuck 500 fuckin 3's a game.

Ultimately, analytics fucked up the NBA. These stat nerds ran their analyses, and convinced teams that only three pointers and layups are "efficient" shots to take.

Can't blame Curry. He's an exceptional player, and the best shooter the league has ever seen. But a 7-foot big man should be down in the low post like Shaq, not shooting threes like Curry.

The NBA has become fuckin garbage.