Maradona37
Well-known member
I think it's actually been shown teams collectively ran a lot less back then, lol. Makes sense due to higher fitness and sports science now. But yes, the guys were strong. Maradona himself had very wide clavicles and was built like an ox, despite his diminutive height. Bit like me, actually, wide-framed and short.
But it doesn't matter - the idea was never you take Pele and Maradona and just drop them in. The idea is you train them up after the time travel to the physical demands of now. Or they were born in 1996 or something.
You also have to remember that, while the game is faster and more intense in that way now, as MagiX says, back then the pitches were awful, equipment worse, and hatchet men you scythe you down and get away with it. Now the threshold for a foul or card is much lower.
There's also the fact that - as football has changed and grown much larger in financial disparity there's bigger gaps between teams now. If Maradona played for Bayern or Barca he'd have zero problem destroying most of the BL or La Liga.
Anyway the point is his talent. These kids who go on about football like it's the 100m and automatically gets better over time need to stop. Unlike 100m, which measures how fast someone runs from A to B (and things change in too like strides and better spikes, better PEDs), football is also a stylistic, qualitative sport. A player born in 1946 can be much more talented than a player born in 1992. Otherwise we can say Jesse Lingard is much better than George Best lol. See how preposterous that sounds?
The game has changed and is quicker, but the recency bias of new era fans is way too much. There's pros and cons to the past and the present.
