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Soccer Blasphemy

MFS62 Jul 13 2008 07:25 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080713/sp_soccer_afp/fblengfraespbeckhamzidane_080713121434 I guess he is too young to have seen Pele play. But if he's right, that leads to an interesting question. We have read and discussed that baseball and football players of today are better than their counterparts of past eras. Reasons given are training and nutrition. Do you think the same goes for soccer? I think what separates the good from the great in soccer are the micro-skills - subtle tricks and techniques with the ball that really aren't effected by increased size and strength. Your thoughts? Later

TheOldMole Jul 13 2008 10:43 AM

Sort of like saying Jet Li is the greatest martial arts star of all time.

metirish Jul 13 2008 08:16 PM

Would be easy to dismiss Beckham as a pretty boy but he has played with some great players and he himself was a decent one. I would rate Zidane as the best player I ever saw play the game along with Maradona over a period of years , best players of their generations. Roy Keane was another that was a true great , didn't have the skill of a Zidane but had great drive and heart and made his team mates better, the best player in my opinion to have played in the English Premier League. Zidane won it all for France and Real Madrid , a truely great player and a joy to watch. I suppose Pele will always be considered the best ever. As for conditioning it is better now of course and has become very important, it wasn't that long ago that a drinking culture was part and parcel of the British game but those days are gone. Still Sócrates smoked two packs a day and starred for Brazil back in the 80's, a great player who also became an MD while playing. His style though was more laid back and not running around like a mad man, wouldn't need to be terribly fit for that. I think if George Best was your typical size forward player in the 60's at 5' 8" then Cristiano Ronaldo at 6' 1" could be today.I have no doubt though that Best or Pele could play in today's game.

Number 6 Jul 14 2008 10:03 AM

metirish wrote: Still Sócrates smoked two packs a day and starred for Brazil back in the 80's, a great player who also became an MD while playing.

metirish Jul 14 2008 12:50 PM

That was hilarious Number 6 , hadn't seen that in years.

Farmer Ted Jul 14 2008 04:50 PM

Blasphemy is wearing something other than the traditional black boots. Same in hockey.

MFS62 Nov 16 2008 11:13 AM

I'm not sure if this is socer blasphemy, but it is soccer related. Yesterday, the fourth-seeded New York Red Bulls got a few fortunate bounces as they clinched their first-ever appearance in the MLS Cup with a 1-0 victory over third-seeded Real Salt Lake in the Western Conference final on Saturday. (From Yahoo sports) Maybe not soccer blasphemy, but certainly geographic blasphemy. A New York team in the Western Conference? Where are the rest of the teams in that league? Bermuda? Provincetown? Later

Willets Point Nov 16 2008 01:03 PM

New York plays in the Eastern Conferences according to the MLS website: http://web.mlsnet.com/standings/ Looks like they award seeds according to overall standings so that there were five teams from the East and three from the West. So I guess it's more like the NCAA tournament "location of where the games are played" as opposed to "location of where the teams are from."

MFS62 Nov 16 2008 01:31 PM

That's a logical take on it. But even during the week before the game, it was being reported as the "Western Conference Final". If they had mentioned it was like the NCAA western regionals it would have made a lot more sense. Later