Welcome to the Dark Ages of football.

[elkanofan]

This is a new follow-on thread to represent a new era of the game. since what I said here 11 years ago:
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=19744
Has sadly not just come true but continually got worse over the last 10 years to the state we are in now I have christened.

The Dark Ages of Football!

Not just in this forum but in general it seems most modern fans only seem to care about the Premier League. What's more interesting is here I've seen people constantly lambast the quality of the premier league, I know Spurs fans like us who say who are realistic as say 'If we get top 4, the rest of the league is poor'. What's more interesting is people saying that if we get into Europe we wouldn't survive very long, I disagree with these statements, this calls for an investigation to what on earth has happened to every single league outside of the Premier League.
Let’s rank in terms of quality the Premier League's best sides against all of Europe's best sides.

The Premier League has.

Top Tier:
Man City
Liverpool
Chelsea

2nd rate:
Man United (Underperforming Top Tier talent)
Spurs
Arsenal

3rd Rate:
Leicester (Underperforming)
West Ham
Wolves
Aston Villa
Everton (severely underperforming)

Then the rest of the league are 4th rate Teams down to Fulham in the Championship

As for Europe:

The only top tier teams are:
PSG
Bayern
Real Madrid

2nd Rate
Barcelona (underperforming)
Atletico
Inter
Juventus (underperforming)
Dortmund
Napoli
Milan (overachieving despite their history, they have a ok side, nothing special though)

3rd Rate
Ajax (overachieving)
Porto
Sporting
Roma
Bayer Leverkusen
Sevilla
RB Leipzig (were underperforming due to low level manager but doing better under Tadesco)
Atlalanta (permanent overachievers)
Lazio
Marseille
Betis
Villarreal
Lyon (underperforming)
Monchengladbach (severely underperforming)
PSV
Lille (underperforming)
Besiktas
Benfica

The rest of Europe isn't worth talking about along with many of these 3rd rate teams. More or less any other team in Europe I haven't mentioned is at best 4th rate Crystal Palace level. They are nothing but feeder clubs where good young and middle of the road players do well then their agent tries desperately to engineer a move to a bigger club for a better paychek or if they have enough social media fame take a money move to the middle east or China in semi retirement, make big money for 1-3 years then either go back to Europe or if your Brazilian chill out in the Brasilerao.

I'm not your typical Premier League only matters fan, I'm actually one of those guys who always used to stick up for other leagues and respect clubs around Europe and the world and leagues when they were good, I used to say La Liga was better than Premier League due to the better football played overall from top to bottom especially 10 years ago when you had teams like Stoke and their hoofball. Thing is over the last 10 years teams that should be challenging their usual league powerhouses have fallen into increasingly worse financial hard times where as some elite top and 2nd tier teams like PSG, Real, Bayern, Juventus etc.. have seen huge influx of big money to assert their dominance in their respective leagues. The Premier League is better financially run than every other league bar Germany which is fair but flawed and exploited by Bayern and Red Bull. This has allowed the Premier League to enable a team like Leicester after their fairytale in 2016 to continue to compete to get top 4, teams like Wolves, West Ham to make signings to turn them into top 10 level sides no worse than many teams playing the Champions League in Germany like Wolfsburg, Lille, Sevilla. This isn't mentioning the established top 6 in the Premier League. No other league has anything close to this level of competitiveness with top tier teams, Serie A is competitive because the best teams there in Inter, Juve and at a stretch AC Milan are all 2nd rate and would be at best fighting for top 4 in England.

All these financial issue for the teams around Europe due to being poorly run and their leagues becoming unfashionable were a big problem before C****19. Now after the Pandemic finally is subsiding things are only going to get much worse if they aren't dire already. The Premier League was smart to allow full stadiums again for much needed revenue for club. Clubs all over Europe have been hurt badly with 'restrictions' and barely even 20% full stadiums with dead atmosphere. How on earth will any of these clubs survive this having to rely on debt? How many clubs will even be around in the next 3-5 years?

Although this financial issue is the biggest reason which has created these footballing Dark Ages. The overarching downfall in society in general in terms of players controlled by greedy agents and TV companies play a big factor. We are currently living through a failed generation of players born between the years 1993 to 1997. This includes players such as Paul Pogba, Pablo Dybala, Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Bruno Fernandes, Bernardo Silva, Mateo Kovačić, Kingsley Coman, Ousmane Dembele, Patrik Schick, Serge Gnabry, Leroy Sane and Anthony Martial. Some of these players have become 'World Class' when you judge them against this current generation. None of them especially Pogba, Martial, Dembele have got close to being the best player of their generation which should have happened by now. All are 24-29 years old now and should be either in their prime or reaching it, none have got close to guys like Modric or Lewandowski or even De Bruyne. These are all in their early to mid 30's. These players have no excuse whatsoever for this. CR7 and Messi won way more Ballon D'ors that they should've due to lack of real serious competition which should've already come from this generation. The reason we don't speak about this is these agents want you to keep buying their shirts, merchandise and EA Sports and Konami want you to keep buying coins to get them in online games, so they continue to milk the cash cow of modern football. They also do not help with deliberately overrating many of these players in these games to add incentives for you to spend money which sadly gives many kids or those who don't understand how to rate players a false reality to their actual level. I feel this is one of the biggest issues with Marcus Rashford right now, he's essentially just Welbeck with more technique but the same level player, he's not and I doubt he ever will be elite.

The new generation after this in 1998 to 2003 may look good in Mbappe, Haaland, Vinicius etc.... However, what exactly are they up against? Ageing Messi and CR7 now both in their mid 30's burnt out after nearly 20 years of top level football? A crap generation of 1993-1997 born players? What's left of the 1989-1992 who are all at their peak? This new generation are hard to judge as they do not sadly have a generation above them to show them the way. Mbappe can literally just maintain the peak Anelka level he's at now and win a Ballon D'Or by default, Mbappe is faster than Anelka was but in terms of pure ability, Mbappe may have a few tricks but they are similar in level, just Anelka played in better era's with better players who outshone him. Haaland maybe a goal machine in a poor league in Germany however he's like Kane in he's just a goal scoring striker. he's not a true elite world class player like Mbappe or guys like Ronaldinho who you pay to watch in a phonebooth on his own with a ball, Mbappe will always be better than him as long as someone keeps his ego in check. Mason Greenwood sadly due to his disgusting behavior has robbed us of potential world class player which for me is the saddest thing more than his brutality. There are so few so gifted like him emerging, we need everyone we can get.

Before I expand on this more with further posts, I wanted most important to say this. Enjoy anything and everything you can guys in world football, its only downwards from here. I remember watching what was a dreadful AFCON in general this year with a handful of good games including Morocco vs Malawi and watching this Puskas contender from Mhango here and going way over the top about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8d8DF9XHMQ

This is the attitude we need to have about the game because we need to expect disappointment and more failed talents and precious little in real quality. It will be a long time until we get another real proper Messi, CR7, Ronaldo, Zidane, Baggio, Ibrahimovic level player again, a very long time.. if anyone has their solutions to how the game can turn around post them here or their thoughts on how badly the game has fallen the last 10 years, even longer. I feel as we enter a chaotic time in world history it’s time for new leagues with fresh ideas and new local based teams with an emphasis on good football. Bringing the street elements back into the game in players being unique and able to express their artistry. Something else I can go on about is how so many teams bar a few managers just use the same old tired formations these days, no creativity anymore.

[Losmeister]

my man

[Highbury Hillbilly]

There is too much money in the game now, and the top clubs can just stockpile talent, leaving the rest of the league with substandard players. This also disincentivizes top clubs from recruiting from their academy. The money is there, so why not buy a ready made player instead of someone who will need a full season or two to get up to speed?

Players are also paid way too much at the start of their senior careers. Ronaldo, Messi, Ibra, these guys can all remember a time when 100k pw was a lot of money. Now, that wouldn't be anywhere near enough to keep a Saka-type player.

That hurts the quality of football. If you're making enough by age 24 to retire and never work again, most people will take that as more than good enough. Only a tiny fraction will want to keep pushing themselves to win at the highest levels of the game.

[22-0]

Doesnt the dutch league have wage caps for that exact reason?

[jayramfootball]

Wish we could give up votes or stars.
Excellent thread and opening post.

To me football is all about the competition week in week out.
It’s great to see the brilliance of players light up a game but it’s boring if games are lopsided to the extent the result is not really in any doubt. Far too much of that in pretty much every European league bar the PL.

With countries now buying football clubs it’s likely to only get worse.

At some point the governing bodies are going to need to do something on salary caps and foreign player limits. We should be finding a way to stop the big clubs buying the game (and trophies)

I would also mention the influence of social media here. It’s seems there is more interest in transfer markets than there is in football half the time and social media drives a frenzy around players… sometimes really average players. Fans have played their part in destroying the game. They feed into this money train 100% and expect instant success - if they don’t get it… social media has massively amplified the disappointment and it’s of course toxic in nature.

[Phil71]

Wish we could give up votes or stars.
Excellent thread and opening post.

To me football is all about the competition week in week out.
It’s great to see the brilliance of players light up a game but it’s boring if games are lopsided to the extent the result is not really in any doubt. Far too much of that in pretty much every European league bar the PL.

With countries now buying football clubs it’s likely to only get worse.

At some point the governing bodies are going to need to do something on salary caps and foreign player limits. We should be finding a way to stop the big clubs buying the game (and trophies)

I would also mention the influence of social media here. It’s seems there is more interest in transfer markets than there is in football half the time and social media drives a frenzy around players… sometimes really average players. Fans have played their part in destroying the game. They feed into this money train 100% and expect instant success - if they don’t get it… social media has massively amplified the disappointment and it’s of course toxic in nature.

We live in an age where people want things instantly. You can contact people instantly. Look up information about anything instantly. Get food instantly. Get clothes or other things instantly. Use a credit card to get whatever you want right now. Watch any film or tv show at whichever time you choose.

It follows that some fans want their clubs to buy this player or that whenever they want them. Or win this game or that without question, and so on.

I'm lucky I think that I come from an age when life was a bit less stressed and a bit slower paced. And although we wanted our club to win every game, when they didn't it wasn't an unmitigated disaster where the manager's head was called for after every defeat, and every signing was analysed to death.