Modern football and time wasting

Date: 26-11-2024

You know every football fan who is 30 years old plus is talking about how good old football. But why is that? Why do people believe old football is way better than “Modern football”? There were so many talented players at past like Ronaldinho, Henry, Kaka etc. People sometimes only watch these players’ teams only to watch this stars eventhough they aren’t the fans of that teams. These players used to give all creativity, soul when they are on the field and give the spectators the most exciting and passionate show. I don’t know what happened but “The beatiful game” transformed into the “The most boring game”.

A football game is completed in 90 minutes and active playing time was used to be around 60 minutes in elite europa leagues in average between 2000-2010 era. It was funny to see that it was reduced to 50 minutes between 2018-2022 in English premier league. The time was mostly wasted by fake injuries which used to be occurred like once in every 5 minutes. I really didn’t understand how game could stop because of injury with this frequency. When you think about fighting sports like box, kickbox, athletes are literally punching each other for 36 minutes. But no one is groaning once in 5 minutes like today’s footballers after receiving a small touch.  Fans started to complain about how footballers make time wasting a standard thing of the game. TV revenues started to drop and people started to cancel their subscriptions. Then Premier League management insructed referees to add every stoppage including goal celebrations, injuries, stoppages during throw ins, free kicks, goal kicks etc. Did it really work? It seemed to work at early stages but after a time period free kicks were started to taken in 1 minutes as before Premier league management decision. Anyways, it’s much better than the past times except the times of Jordan Pickford and Emi Martinez grab the ball. All the fans will be waiting them to pass the ball to teammate for 1,5 minutes ( There was a rule which is called like 6 seconds rule. But I see none of Premier League referees remembers this rule.)

There is a research which was published in 2019 by Football Observatory. The ranking between top 5 leagues is as below.  You can see the most fluid football belongs to Bundesliga with 57.1% in game time ratio. This is close to 52 minutes active playing time which is not close to 60 minutes in game time plays like 2000-2010 era.

No	League	In game time ratio
1	Bundesliga (GER)	57.1%
2	Ligue 1 (FRA)	56.7%
3	Serie A (ITA)	55.6%
4	Premier League (ENG)	55.0%
5	Primera Division (ESP)	53.3%

A football match time can change and isn’t the most important factor.. But we must preserve the spirit of this game. All footballers who is trying to slow down the tempo or waste time should be punished. A football game starts and there is always a team which is trying to slow down the tempo or using every freekick throw in more than usual time. If you want to play for 0-0, you should make a good defence to preserve the tie. Football rules shouldn’t be allowing a team to waste time by fake injuries, or using a simple throw-in in one minute. Basketball games are more fluid and have more entertainment right now. Because basketball rules are designed and updated according to current conditions.  If a team has the lead, they need to defend the game or score more than their opponent to win the game in basketball. If a game is approaching the closing time of stoppage and leading team is using freekick or throw in, leading team is faking injury or moving slow to consume the remaining time in football. Also a team should defend the lead until the last minute instead of consuming time with cheap tactics. Some people tells that it’s the strategic part of the game. But you know that it’s far from truth.

Solutions might be one of following.

1. Fake injuries should be prevented. You can see some funny compilation videos for fake injuries on internet. But it’s annoying to see players are groaning on the floor like 5 minutes. But they can miraculously run like a cheetah after 5 minutes of wasting time. It should be banned. If medicals enter the field, player should be outlined for minimum 15 minutes. So players will have time to recover(!) during this period. I believe it’s a good solution. Because no team wants to play with one man absent for 15 minutes.
2. Maybe a time limit can be determined for each free-kick or throw-in for like 10 or 15 seconds.

These are my thoughts for today’s football and time wasting which is the negative side. I hope we’ll have some new rules to regulate and make the game more fluid and passionate.   

Tags: #football #modernfootball #thebeatifulgame