The Rest Of the World v European all-stars led by Pele and Beckenbauer It was a delight to the world to see somany stars on the pitch, a thrilling match that ended 3-2 to Europe
The era of the super players arrived with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, now with two others in Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland, but what about the rest? The era of Messi and Ronaldo is closing, both exchanging world player of the year awards and Golden boots at various years or seasons. This article is not to discuss who is better, Messi or Ronaldo, but to ask..what in the world has happened to the era of the great technical players spread across the world?
It is as if both Messi and CR7 sucked the world of all the technical abilities and created a rivalry like no other, now we have Haaland and Mbappe. Many years back my Brazilian colleague and chief coach at the Brazil Football Center said this : As the world economy gets better and living standards get better, the street player is missing, that spontaneous skill or improvisation is gone, even Brazil are losing their identity."
I agree, add the internet and the digital economy to it, the mystique of that legendary player is gone, this is all the more true for South American players who get plucked away easily before even getting to mature in the domestic game, also the element of surprise is gone. People or scouts now can view youtube and know if they want to buy the player or not, or better still look out for his weakness, the world has become smaller now. In the 80s and before that world football had players like : Maradona, Zico, Platini, Falcao, Kempes, Rumenigge, Pele, Beckenbauer, Cryuff, Hugo Sanchez, Bryan Robson, Kevin Keegan, Butragueno, Michael Laudrup, etc I could go on and on.
The game instead has gone faster, offside still needs to be looked at a few times even with VAR, the era of the super athletes have arrived, so should we celebrate the era of the super players, where two or maybe three players are way ahead of the pack? Is this the evolution of the game? So should coaching change and try to simulate the street conditions for youth players at the academy? If so, how?
The next 10 or 20 years is going to be interesting.
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