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A question that's been bugging me for a while


Derbados

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I'd love to see Ronaldo have a birthday on the old Baseball Ground pitch of the '70s...or some of the pitches Maradona used to do it on in '80s Buenos Aries...add to that some of the...shall we say ... agricultural defending.

I wonder what Tommy Smith, Jimmy Case, or Norman Hunter  would have done with him.

He'd be crying into his hair gel.

I'm glad this part of the game is gone/going. They might be no nonsense defenders to some but to me, they're thugs. 

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I'm glad this part of the game is gone/going. They might be no nonsense defenders to some but to me, they're thugs. 

Rubbish. Football is a contact sport and always has been.

Ask any Liverpool fan what they think of Tommy Smith and/or Jimmy Case.

They will all tell you that they are true club greats.

Souness ... also in that magnificent era for Liverpool - was a true great of British football ... a true great. It is indisputable.

Rest assured though - a petulant fancy Dan would know his place.

Terry Hurlock, Pat van den Hauwe, Vinnie Jones, Kevin Muscatt, Ben Thatcher ... now they were thugs, and all from a more modern era. Neanderthals with no redeeming features.

Get the distinction right before you cast aspersion on proper greats of the game.

Just because they were hard, and knew how to assert their position on the pitch and let you know that you have to earn the right to play, does not mean they were thugs.

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All you can really do is compare how they were against the rest of the players at the time and assume that football is pretty even having lost some bad habits and picked up new ones.

Would Messi ride a challenge from 1970?

Well he would have grown up through the game entirely differently.

Would George Best match Messi for fitness and pace? Again if he was coming through now he would have to.

Not to mention the level of analysis and stats and videos available to managers now.

Basically I think if you dropped either into the opposing generation then they'd both be out if their depth and out of touch with the game.

I guess it comes down to how extraordinary are these players in comparison to the rest of football.

But football was far more accessible in the 70's and that has 100% changed for the worse.

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Ronaldo and Messi are far better than any players from the 1960s. If you go on youtube and watch them carefully they are doing moves that nobody tried in the old days. Even George Best didn't go past players like this :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx7Al9vUwfo

Wow. seriously, that's what you think?

 

I think there's less skill in the modern game than back then. The emphasis is on power and pace rather than skill on the ball now.

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When Ronaldo first played in this country I thought he was just a fancy dan who would soon be put in his place. But he has proved himself to be one of the all time greats. His goal scoring rate is phenomenal. How would he have fared in an earlier era? Well just imagine it is 1975 and we are playing Real Madrid again but this time they have got Ronaldo on the wing. Can you imagine what he would do to Rod Thomas? Poor old

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Did Ronaldo ever have to play with a football that was almost twice his own body weight?

Also - has Ronaldo ever played on a pitch as heavy as that of the Baseball Ground in the '70s?

Would Shackleton have recieved the same protection as Ronaldo is now afforded? Or would he be told to 'stop whingeing like a poof and get on with it' if he was clattered?

These comparisons are simply redundant. The respective working conditions of the players are poles apart. 

We will simply never know.

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Peter, if Ronaldo played in the 1970s, he'd be a completely different player.

 

His whole style is a development of those who went before him, and as a result of hard work with resources that his predecessors could only dream of.

 

Unless you're seriously suggesting that Ronaldo is pure ability and nothing else - you would have to admit he wouldn't be exactly the same player if he was born in the 50s and playing in the 70s.

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