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.
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.
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.
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.
