piss off!

 

I mean seriously, you are aware that players like George Best and Pele, who were far more artistic than anyone playing the game today, excelled in an era where attempted murder was legal, right?

 

It's not ballet.

...and Zidane was a bltch on the pitch.

 

This guy used to be such a lethal, sharp as a knife striker before his injury. His performance against Everton a couple of seasons back was a display of supreme ability. But since the injury he's lost his pace, looks shaky, his touch is unsure and more cautious and overall he's just lost the spark he used to bring to the football pitch. He was just woeful against Chelsea last night, way off the pace of the game.

He may still recover some of his prowess to be good enough (just about) to play in the top leagues of Europe, but he certainly won't entertain like he used to and will probably have to step down to play in a mid table side.

I agree. It's so sad to see what the most clinical, lethal, deadly striker the world has ever had the pleasure to see has been reduced to.

Which brings me to my point.

Its really sad for football in general that the players who are capable of producing beauty on the pitch are not protected by the laws of the game (and I'm not talking about protection from referees).

I think football being a game, entertainment is its crucial function. Much more so than allowing a group of people (supporters of a club/country) to feel like 'they won something'. If this premise is valid, then UEFA and FIFA must do more to ensure that players who try to entertain are not cut down in their prime and reduced to a shadow of their former self. Just to add insult to injury in Eduardo's case, UEFA actually picked on him for diving! Ridiculous.

In my opinion FIFA needs to discourage the sliding tackle and general physical contact. Players who go to ground and don't win the ball should automatically get yellow cards. Those earlier laws dealing with tackles from behind need to be strictly reinforced. In time, this would encourage defending to become more of an art form rather than the crude displays we are used to seeing from guys like Walter Samuel and Ayala (don't mean to pick on them, just names that come easily to mind). I feel this is something that the governing body of football should seriously look at before the game gets any more physical and fitness-based and the artistry of genius like Zidane's goes out of the picture completely.

Bravo!

 

If this premise is valid, then UEFA and FIFA must do more to ensure that players who try to entertain are not cut down in their prime and reduced to a shadow of their former self. Just to add insult to injury in Eduardo's case, UEFA actually picked on him for diving! Ridiculous.

Everyone tries to Entertain, not only Eduardo.

They can dive all they want.

 

Like womens hockey?

A perfectly timed sliding tackle can be an art form in itself. Nothing to look down on although going to ground continously is not very clever but it has it's part in the game when needed. Kill and dilute the game if those measures you are going on about are implemented. Football is a physical sport. Not all just about pretty patterns and flowing football.

As for Eduardo there is a lot of knee jerk going on about him atm. Course it would be no surprise not to see him return to his former self even probable given his horrific injury but the guy should at least be given half a chance to see whether he can do some kind of a job. He hasn't had a run of games at all since his injury and he is obviously finding it a bit difficult atm to get into a new system that Wenger has arrived at this season plus his overall game not being sharp atm. A lot of the over the top slagging off him is just frustration because of the RVP injury. Someone to vent it out on. He's still a better bet than someone like Vela. Has more intelligence in his play than Vela. If he doesn't work out so be it but Wenger by initially picking him has shown that he thinks Eduardo deserves a chance.

Rosicky had a poor game against Sunderland with misplaced passes and generally being a passenger in that game. Nothing was said or commented on it. Why? because he isn't replacing a key player in a key position. He has more leeway than Eduardo to get his game together after being out forever.

Bendtner is back soon. He'll probably get the same stick if he doesn't produce instantly. Such is the life of the striker.

 

As for Eduardo there is a lot of knee jerk going on about him atm.

Yeah, nice double-entendre there. You bastard.

 

I'm sorry but I must say this, collectedsoul is an absolute *****. Football is a contact sport, and if you are disgusted with contact, I think you're better off playing/watching chess.

If you haven't gotten the memo yet, This is a sport for real men! Grow a pair fvckface.





Btw, I find the rules to be too overprotective now, and we're having too many pansies on the pitch. Just to state a few examples:

a)Brandishing cards for intent (who the **** decides if it is intent or not) is already a joke,
b)clean tackles from behind are penalized,
c)any form of contact and players are flying around like they're made of paper,
d)players clutching their faces/legs/abdomen/hands/etc as if they just got shot.

 

Eduardo was never as good as you seem to think. Look at his Premier League goals to game ratio before he was injured. Fair enough, he would only have improved but he certainly wasn't banging em in.

 

No way, if Eduardo was not injured Arsenal would have done the treble that season, easily.

 

A lot of bullshit gets talked about Eduardo, both overrating and underrating him. He's spent most of his time at Arsenal playing the odd game here and there, playing in cup games against weak teams, playing on the wing, making sub appearances...oh and being laid out for a year with an injury. If you want to judge him you need to judge him on a run of starting appearances as a striker, and we only have two months of that pre-injury and about two games post-injury at Arsenal to go on.

 

I say Eduardo is proctecting himself because the refs dont. thats why he dives. fighting fire with fire

 

Funny. I thought rugby was the game for sublimating the male desire for banging each other's heads into pulp. Football's objective is for one team of 11 to move a ball around another team, ultimately delivering it into their goal. While the other team tries to stop them by fair means. Fair means. Not foul. I mentioned that stricter laws against defenders going to ground would encourage them looking for the ball when the opportunity affords itself. Thereby encouraging smarter and more enterprising defensive play.

If its all the same whether the defender gets the ball or breaks the attacker's bones in a show of his own balls then the point is kinda lost. So it seems to me.

And those who've seen Eduardo's best know how capable a forward player he could be. Is it necessary for Ronaldo's leg to get broken for my point to be valid? To even bring up Eduardo's level of ability in this discussion is a clear sign of short sightedness.

 

Funny. I thought rugby was the game for sublimating the male desire for banging each other's heads into pulp. Football's objective is for one team of 11 to move a ball around another team, ultimately delivering it into their goal. While the other team tries to stop them by fair means. Fair means. Not foul.

Yes, well done - and a sliding tackle or a bit of physical contact is fair means of stopping them.

 

Yes - massively so compared to 20/30 years ago. Even compared to 15 years ago when you'd get away with just a free kick for tackle from behind, for example.

Gotta say as well, some of the worst tackles I've seen have been done by attackers!

 

People still get away with just a free kick for a tackle from behind. And by 'attacker' I just mean the player/team in possession of the football. Not the position they play.

You're probably right that it was worse in the past, the little I've seen from Pele's games shows some shocking attempts at hacking him to pieces. But I'm sure things like that were what led FIFA to try and prevent that kind of criminal activity on the pitch. It doesn't seem right to me to try to justify the shit today by saying the shit was more nutty in the past. Excuse the analogy.

 

It's **** all, it's an absolute tarts game now. Why anyone would want it to get any softer is beyond me.

Injuries are unfortunate, but it's part of the deal with a contact sport. If you don't want to see injuries, watch netball.

 

If you don't want to see injuries, watch netball.

I'm sick of your senseless anti-netball agenda, Rob. Those girls play as hard, or harder than anyone who's ever set foot on a football pitch, and they deserve our respect!

 

Not softer. More responsible, Precise. Good things come out of chasing ideals.

 

Noone will go to the ground if they get a guaranteed yellow if they miss.

 

That would be the day. roud:

Okay maybe automatic yellow for missing the ball is going too far. At the moment. I'm not sure though. How about no yellow cards if you get at least part of the ball but automatic yellow if you get only the man without touching the ball. Why can't that be a goal for gradual change in the future? It would encourage teams to go out and play instead of sitting back and 'absorbing'. Btw, guys like Terry wouldn't pick up too many yellow cards even with that rule, he rarely misses the ball completely. Now that's a defender.

 

Have you ever watched one of those world XI Vs European XI charity games? That is the football world you're talking about.

Those games are SHITE!

 

That's because there's nothing at stake there and its a bunch of randomly assembled players. But imagine those 5-4 scorelines in every competitive game! :happy:

 

It wouldn't be competitive if you can't tackle hard. If you want to get rid of sliding, you need to make the pitch considerably smaller.

 

And if you want high scoring, watch basketball.

 

Basketball would be a lot more interesting if sports wasn't so much of a commodity in the US. Those Chicago-Utah Boston-LA championship battles are too much of a rarity.

The pitch size is fine. Socrates (the Brazilian footballer) said a long time back that football should be reduced to 10v10 or 9v9. He makes sense to me because the fitness levels of players are so high that there's hardly any space left anymore. Combine this with limiting aggressive tackling and then you've got a game on your hands. Of the beautiful kind.

 

Eh, watch the legends games on sky, plenty of skill, no aggression, 10 goals a game. Sounds like your thing.

 

Now that's the Hull City fan talking.

 

Well it does make sense that someone who just watched Arsenal get muscled out of the game by Chelsea and made to look like a bunch of kids would want to get rid of contact.

Sorry, man's game.