Quote from: yellowcard on April 15, 2024, 10:09:59 AMI was thinking about this over the weekend and how the game has changed so much and not necessarily for the better. When I first started playing senior football 20 years ago it was all about your ability as a footballer - fitness was always important but was always secondary. I think nowadays you can't make it as a footballer (including club level) unless you have the fitness and athleticism to constantly bomb up and down the pitch. Positions mean less and less nowadays and stupid rules like the mark have not enhanced the game one bit. The je ne sais quoi is gone.Quote from: Jell 0 Biafra on April 15, 2024, 01:04:06 AMQuote from: yellowcard on April 14, 2024, 10:17:49 PMQuote from: AustinPowers on April 14, 2024, 08:53:25 PMQuote from: Sportacus on April 14, 2024, 05:26:12 PMSixty thousand empty seats in Croke Park for a Dublin Meath championship match. What a sad state of affairs.
Sad indeed
A number of obvious reasons for it , but one thing I have to say from watching a numbers of games this weekend, is that the quality of football right now is absolutely dire
As a spectacle it really has become a poor game to watch. Ruined by over coaching and stats, the level of crowd engagement at a match has never been lower.
Yes and no. The league final was a fantastic game. The latter stages of the AI last year were pretty compelling. Lots of mismatches in the early stages, like every year, but that's not uncommon in sport. Look at the top 5 or 6 European soccer leagues this year, and the top teams are pretty much scunnering everyone else.
The League final was great but it was a rarity. I don't think we should be measuring it against soccer but it's almost become possession orientated in the way that soccer is. The difference is that the level of technical skill required in soccer is much higher to retain possession.
Gaelic football was not designed to be a possession sport. It should be a game of duels, collisions and end to end action played at fast pace. It has become anything but that due mostly to data analytics and professional coaches exploiting the rules.