General Modern Football: Is It Just Boring?

[werthersoriginal]

A lot of modern things are 'better' but kind of boring. If I want to go to a gig at the Zodiac I have to download an app and pay a booking fee and delivery charge even though you can only get the tickets online, and it's seven quid a pint in a plastic glass and not as loud as it used to be. But the sound's a lot clearer and it can still be exciting, and so can football. I was gripped watching the game online last night even though it wasn't a particularly eventful game and we were a bit disappointing. Young people maybe enjoy it in a different way from how people used to, but moaning about how things have changed just makes us sound old.

 

[m]

A lot of modern things are 'better' but kind of boring. If I want to go to a gig at the Zodiac I have to download an app and pay a booking fee and delivery charge even though you can only get the tickets online, and it's seven quid a pint in a plastic glass and not as loud as it used to be. But the sound's a lot clearer and it can still be exciting, and so can football. I was gripped watching the game online last night even though it wasn't a particularly eventful game and we were a bit disappointing. Young people maybe enjoy it in a different way from how people used to, but moaning about how things have changed just makes us sound old.

Tend to agree, it's different.

Not sure it feels any duller now than it did 10 years ago though, guess I was utterly bored with the Prem by the late 90s.

 

[werthersoriginal]

Tend to agree, it's different.

Not sure it feels any duller now than it did 10 years ago though, guess I was utterly bored with the Prem by the late 90s.

The Prem is boring because it’s predictable and the same teams generally win every week, not just because it’s sanitised and corporate

 

[holdsteady]

The Prem is boring because it’s predictable and the same teams generally win every week, not just because it’s sanitised and corporate

I dunno, Man U lose every other game they play, Man City hadn’t won in a while before creeping through against Luton, Villa right up there, it’s actually the most interesting prem season for a while this year.

 

[OX14]

The Prem is boring because it’s predictable and the same teams generally win every week, not just because it’s sanitised and corporate

Not this season it isn't.

Bournemouth beating Man U away
Everton beating Chelsea
Fulham hammering West Ham 5-0
Spurs beating Newcastle 4-1
Villa beating Arsenal

And that was just one weekend of fixtures this season.

Most of the EPL games I've watched this season have been far more exciting than our previous 6 games. Leyton Orient away was the last game I enjoyed watching but everything that has followed has been dross.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

I dunno, Man U lose every other game they play, Man City hadn’t won in a while before creeping through against Luton, Villa right up there, it’s actually the most interesting prem season for a while this year.

Can’t remember who said it on talkSPORT the other day but they said that Man United could be the new Nottingham Forest after Forest won the European cup and then went down hill steadily over the years.
One can hope.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

If you really want to watch boring football then watch any game in the Serie A this season. Long gone are the days of Italia 90!

 

[OUFCwaffle]

Nah, there's always been good and downright bad it's just time helps bury the dross. ie it doesn't get constantly replayed 'cos it's ain't worth watching. I do however think the saturation coverage and the need to big up a game just because TV company x has the game distorts perceptions

Just wait until you've got twenty more years under your belt you'll be reminiscing fondly on the Robinson years!!! Now, they were unpredictable.

Give him credit, we did have some bloody fun games under Robinson in the pre-covid season. Thinking 4-0 battering of West Ham, Holland equalising 2-2 against Newcastle (still my craziest moment following OUFC), Taylor equaliser vs Man City. Granted we did ultimately lose those games but nonetheless that team before Fosu and Baptiste left was bloody brilliant.

We've been pretty stale post-covid though with very few moments of note in my opinion, and the atmosphere at home has been particularly sterile.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

Give him credit, we did have some bloody fun games under Robinson in the pre-covid season. Thinking 4-0 battering of West Ham, Holland equalising 2-2 against Newcastle (still my craziest moment following OUFC), Taylor equaliser vs Man City. That team before Fosu and Baptiste left was bloody brilliant.

Robinson played ‘rock and roll football’, if they score 2 then we will score 3. Unfortunately it wasn’t sustainable but some of the games and the excitement of the crowd was obvious when we were attacking a team with pace.

 

[werthersoriginal]

Not this season it isn't.

Bournemouth beating Man U away
Everton beating Chelsea
Fulham hammering West Ham 5-0
Spurs beating Newcastle 4-1
Villa beating Arsenal

And that was just one weekend of fixtures this season.

Most of the EPL games I've watched this season have been far more exciting than our previous 6 games. Leyton Orient away was the last game I enjoyed watching but everything that has followed has been dross.

Yes true, it has been better this season, though the big teams tend to win it In the last minute and will ultimately reassert themselves.

 

[tonyw]

I live 3,500 miles away from the Kasstad.
Even 10 years ago, my options for Oxford games would have been to listen to Radio Oxford via a VPN, and maybe watch the 2 minute highlights on YouTube a few days later.
30 years ago, I would likely have been looking for a copy of a British newspaper in the train station so I could just find out last night's score.
Now I get to watch every game (except maybe the odd cup match) live, whilst listening to Jerome and Nathan.

For an exile, modern football is kind of awesome.

(and actually the Premier League has been pretty entertaining - and absurdly high quality - on the few occasions I've tuned into games this year)

 

[tonyw]

If you really want to watch boring football then watch any game in the Serie A this season. Long gone are the days of Italia 90!

Italia 90 has this amazing reputation that is completely undeserved.

It actually has the lowest goals per game of any World Cup in history, and was a tournament so tedious and defensive that they introduced the back-pass rule immediately afterwards.

But stick a cracking Puccini aria over footage of Gazza crying and Schillachi going mental, and people will go misty-eyed for it decades later!!

 

[Marked Ox]

If you really want to watch boring football then watch any game in the Serie A this season. Long gone are the days of Italia 90!

Ah, happy memories of a lazy morning watching Gazzetta Football Italia.

 

[Steve Gilbert]

I live 3,500 miles away from the Kasstad.
Even 10 years ago, my options for Oxford games would have been to listen to Radio Oxford via a VPN, and maybe watch the 2 minute highlights on YouTube a few days later.
30 years ago, I would likely have been looking for a copy of a British newspaper in the train station so I could just find out last night's score.
Now I get to watch every game (except maybe the odd cup match) live, whilst listening to Jerome and Nathan.

For an exile, modern football is kind of awesome.

(and actually the Premier League has been pretty entertaining - and absurdly high quality - on the few occasions I've tuned into games this year)

I tend to agree with the exile thing. I love listening to the games when I can and found last nights game a good watch, even if not a bit disappointing in the end.
By Saturday even though I’ll be over the result and get on with my night. I tend not to let bad results affect me as they used to when I lived in the county.
I have a friend who lives in Stafford and felt the same but since he now goes week in week out he has suddenly become very negative about everything to do with the club.
I don’t think exiles care less but I do feel it is easier to turn off emotions when you can’t go all the time.

 

[werthersoriginal]

I tend to agree with the exile thing. I love listening to the games when I can and found last nights game a good watch, even if not a bit disappointing in the end.
By Saturday even though I’ll be over the result and get on with my night. I tend not to let bad results affect me as they used to when I lived in the county.
I have a friend who lives in Stafford and felt the same but since he now goes week in week out he has suddenly become very negative about everything to do with the club.
I don’t think exiles care less but I do feel it is easier to turn off emotions when you can’t go all the time.

I go to the home games and watch some away matches online. I actually find that more stressful, without mates to discuss the disasters with and turn them into black humour

 

[chuckbert]

I live 3,500 miles away from the Kasstad.
Even 10 years ago, my options for Oxford games would have been to listen to Radio Oxford via a VPN, and maybe watch the 2 minute highlights on YouTube a few days later.
30 years ago, I would likely have been looking for a copy of a British newspaper in the train station so I could just find out last night's score.
Now I get to watch every game (except maybe the odd cup match) live, whilst listening to Jerome and Nathan.

For an exile, modern football is kind of awesome.

(and actually the Premier League has been pretty entertaining - and absurdly high quality - on the few occasions I've tuned into games this year)

100% agree.
In the late 80s/90s in Manchester I struggled to keep up with Oxford, apart from going to away games, looking on teletext, and reading rec.sport.soccer on usenet.
Late 90s in Sydney it was Oxtales, usenet and may dad faxing me newspaper articles (yes, 4real!).
Early 2000s in Scotland, it was various forums online and radio (real or internet) when we were in a featured game, and 4 hour drives to "home" games in Carlisle.
Since mid 2000s in Perth, it has moved from just forums, radox online, dodgy video streams for important games, to what he have now where I get almost every game in good quality video with radox commentary, and I complain if things drop out for a minute or the camera angle is crap, and I could fly direct from Perth to Heathrow (if I was made of money).

I love watching football especially now that my sidekick (15 year old son) is obsessed and we watch together. I have found watching Oxford and England compelling even when the quality hasn't been great, simply because of my emotional commitment!

 

[MustardYellow]

To provide a counter point to this (I’m not saying it’s wrong necessarily, just putting a different side out there):

In the Premier League, only 7 points separate 1st and 5th. There are 5 teams who could arguably be in with a shot for the title. Every team has dropped points in at least 5 games already - you have no idea who’s going to win each week. Man Utd and Newcastle, with huge finances behind them, are 6th and 7th. Chelsea have spent £1bn to be 12th. Last season we had the record broken for the most goals ever scored by an individual in the Premier League.

Two examples of great games this season:

Man City 3-3 Spurs
Chelsea 4-4 Man City

I watched both of these and there’s no denying they were exciting, fast paced football, packed full of incident and enjoyable to watch as a neutral.

In Spain, Girona top the league ahead of the traditional big three. A 20 year old English midfielder is the top scorer…

Overall I agree that nothing is good as it used to be though.

I take your point, but I think in an odd sort of way that's what makes it not as interesting - everyone is a bit crap. Obviously City have been very good results wise over the last few years, but they aren't a very interesting team to watch. 99% of their games are frankly dull.

Even at League One level, I think the standard over the last couple of years has been woeful. Bolton are a decent side, and I've watched Pompey a couple of times this season and again they're decent but they aren't all that - I just think everyone else is so poor it makes fairly average sides look good.

I don't just think it's the games themselves though. In both of those games you refer to, I never felt like I was watching an 'all-time' game. The atmosphere in both was largely pretty rubbish.

I personally found the Chelsea Spurs (4-1) game far more entertaining than those. Yes on paper it looks like a battering, but Spurs having 2 sent off and against all odds still going for it till the very end was refreshing. Seeing a team taking risks felt like watching the fun, entertaining football of old.

I know some won't agree or even know what I mean but to me, games just don't feel the same as they did.

 

[Paul Cannell]

Brilliant , go and have a rub down with your guardian..

I suggest you might capitalise that 'guardian'. Otherwise it looks a bit like your inner Lord Sidcup is erupting.

 

[MustardYellow]

Nah, there's always been good and downright bad it's just time helps bury the dross. ie it doesn't get constantly replayed 'cos it's ain't worth watching. I do however think the saturation coverage and the need to big up a game just because TV company x has the game distorts perceptions

Just wait until you've got twenty more years under your belt you'll be reminiscing fondly on the Robinson years!!! Now, they were unpredictable.

You may be right, but I personally found the all round experience of following Oxford way more fun before COVID, even when it wasn't great result wise.

In my teens I used to go to pretty much every single game home and away - I still go to all home games but I more pick and choose with away. It just doesn't feel the same.

 

[MustardYellow]

The problem lies in the coaching, or rather that coaching is learned from a course. To get your qualification, you have to put in hours, firstly at study and then practical (a bit like how a pilot will train on a simulator and then have to log flight hours before he gets his "wings"), after which you can demonstrate that you understand EUFA's standards for how the "modern game" should be played.

At grass roots level ("EUFA C" diploma), you "learn to provide a positive developmental experience that enhances players’ enjoyment, knowledge, and skill, inspiring a lifelong desire to play football and stay involved in the game". On the "B" licence course you "learn age- and ability-specific coaching techniques to develop players at youth through to senior amateur level". Doing the "A" diploma gives you "insight into technical policy, as well as dealing with external factors affecting a team's performance and being accountable to a club's management." and finally, your "Pro Licence" gives you the skills to "develop and apply technical policy and philosophy, creating a winning team and high-performance culture".

Nothing wrong with that as an aspiration, but realise that each and every coach has spent over 600 hours absorbing the methods prescribed by the UEFA Coaching Convention which has a mandate to "set the standard for coaching in European football" by "setting high coach education standards in all UEFA member associations, in order to develop better coaches and, ultimately, better players and the overall quality of the game".

EUFA has issued in excess of 2,000 "Pro" and "A" diplomas to coaches registered with the FA and they have all learned how to organise the game the EUFA way. Is it any wonder why we are now seeing teams in L1 and even L2 trying to play like Manchester City - but if the players don't have the talent to play outside the prescribed "standards", your game plan (and therefore your instructions to the players) becomes 1) retain possession, 2) don't risk losing the ball unnecessarily and 3) wait for your xG opportunity to be high until you make an attempt at goal.

I've never understood why you should have to have a 'badge' to coach. As you say, it just churns out clones of coaches who all have the same principles and ideas.

There's no diversity in play.