It is difficult to invent a stupider title but it is true, I love and hate the football we have had. I’m going to try to unravel my ideas and see if anyone agrees.
The number of games at any time is detestable, except for the Champions League, which we know is played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays almost always every 15 days, the rest is crazy. Matches on Tuesdays at three in the afternoon or Saturdays at twelve at night in lost championships such as the Copa Sudamericana preliminary round or the Copa del Rey. Before, you watched one game, heard the rest on the radio and nothing happened, I hardly watch more than one game per league on each date. I don’t understand why no game can overlap with another, even more so when the Champions League schedules two or more games involving top-level teams, champions, simultaneously without major problems.
I love television. Before, to see a live match different from the World Cup, you had to wait for the Copa Libertadores final. In my time, in the seventies, we watched a football match on television every eight days with one peculiarity, it was not live. The German matches of “Football the best show on earth” arrived ten or twelve days later. At that time, communications and the press did not collect information about, for example, German football, there was no internet and the press from other places also arrived very late. Currently I know that I am going to see Liverpool on Saturday and probably River on Sunday. Lots of cameras, good narration and good football.
The VAR ended the fluid game to which we were accustomed, it has reached the point of a review of more than two hours, the match was at the Paris Olympics between Argentina and Morocco. The goal was shouted when the ball entered the goal and the player was immediately sent off, the players screwed and screwed with or without VAR. The line judges had a clinical eye (the good ones) and raised the flag with astonishing confidence, not one was missed. The biggest question was whether or not it was online. Nowadays none of the brats who even know the Bellingham menu can know what an “online” player is.
The most exasperating thing is the ritual to correct. The staging is almost always the same, a dubious play, several players pressing the referee, who holds the side of his head as if he had a migraine (the VAR is calling him) and begins a short walk to a screen that is always very far away. That parade is accompanied by players from one team and another who fuck. Then the referee talks to who knows who and asks for takes, lines and replays in super slow motion. After analyzing, you will know that, it is returned with the same cadence and the same joking of the players. In the end, with hand signs, he indicates anything. More than 10 minutes have been lost and 4 will surely be made up. The VAR did not put an end to the errors, it simply passed them on to three or four guys who watch a soccer game on television as if it were chess. Today, just like 15 years ago, an offside is marked poorly, the difference is that before it was a matter of 10 seconds, now it can take 15 minutes. The most hateful thing is shouting a goal ten minutes after it happened.
The t-shirts, here there is love and hate, with patience or money you can get beautiful t-shirts, several teams change each year generally with very good sense, wonderful colors and designs. Putting on a soccer jersey is a pleasure, much greater when you have really played or are from the team you love. Unfortunately, economic necessity causes many to become showcases for unknown products. In Colombia, even motel advertising has appeared in some. There are tribute t-shirts, rare third kit t-shirts, national team t-shirts, retro t-shirts and any other.
The fanfare of football seems boring to me, finding out that Yamal’s 18th birthday party was almost a bacchanal with dwarfs and accompanying models seems excessive to me. In Argentina there are eternal publications and programs that analyze an image from any social network or a phrase. There are women who are experts at appearing as the wife, lover, friend or enemy of one player or the wife, friend or lover of another. We know the diet, we know their parents and there are photos of the newborn stars, nothing to do with football. That seems to sell.
The quality of the players and the matches is unsurpassed. From April 23, 2008 to December 8, 2020, we had the happy opportunity to see the most wonderful rivalry in football: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who faced each other between friendly and special matches 37 times. And not only these two geniuses, guys like Iniesta, Buffon, Suarez, Forlán and many other great stars played during this era. To make a comparison, Cruyff and Beckenbauer met only six times and only twice between their teams, Ajax and Bayern. The footballer of this era does incredible things, acrobatics like Slatan’s or free kicks like Roberto Carlos’s that are difficult to beat, he plays very fast and precise. Surely the great geniuses of other eras like Garrincha, Best or Rivelino would be fantastic playing at today’s speed. We have seen great teams, great tournaments and great rivalries like no other time.
To finish the world cup; with 48 teams we will see messes like Haiti-Scotland or Algeria-Jordan; 72 games will be played in the group stage, the vast majority of which are quite poor, almost 90% of the teams that will advance to the next round can be predicted. With the price of tickets there will surely be empty stadiums and mediocre games. Of course, from that moment on all the games will be good.
Modern football is an organized disaster, full of stupidities, games that nobody asked for and decisions that nobody understands. Even so, when a good game starts, I forget everything. That’s why I hate it… and that’s why I can’t stop watching it.
