Is Joga Bonito dead?- Flair Players in the Top 5 Leagues

I think it’s unequivocal that flair players are on the outs. Most of the plays they did were low percentage or could’ve been achieved with a simpler movement. Which is what modern football management has sought to drive out of the game via analytics. Ronaldinho did things that defied sense and they often came off but by and large that sort of thing is discouraged nowadays for patterns of play. The scope for individuality squeezed out.

The other factor is the type of player the game promotes. All players have to work hard for the team and press, this means graceful artists like Bergkamp, Riquelme etc., just don’t flourish today or become different types of players at a younger age. Imagine Le Tissier in a modern system. It’d be like playing with ten men most of the game.

It’s a real shame.

The only hope is that football is cyclical and maybe at some point we will see the rise of the mercurial number 10 again.

Many people here have called it robotic. And I think that’s a perfect descriptor.
 
Skills said:
Pretty sure Guardiola's had very little influence on the way players dribble. He's not a youth coach or hasn't been one for years. Tactically he's obviously been revolutionary.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised at how much influence his style has over youth coaches. He's been around for 15 years, there are now hundreds of coaches influenced by him. I think all academies more or less started playing his positional style of play which incentivizes 'efficient' play over low risk plays.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
The reason football has seen such a decline in flair players is because the sport is slowly becoming a gated sport at the junior level. The great myth in football today is the 0.012% stat about people who become professional footballers because the reality is, if you are not in an academy from an extremely young age, you are not going to make it and once you are in an academy you are entering a structured environment with adults telling you how football should be played. Football is a skill that can be learned and you could take the most average 5 year old from a group of 100 5 year olds, stick them in an academy and they would quickly become the best of that 100 because they would be training to a completely different level in terms of frequency and quality. Just look at the number of ex footballers kids now coming through the ranks, this will only increase as academy spots are taken up more and more. The knock on effect of this is by hoovering up children so young for academies they don't play as much on the streets and, in particular with the players we think of as great flair players, don't get exposure to futsal and other forms of smaller pitch or caged games (I think some academies try to incorporate futsal into their training but it's very different playing with your friends for fun and being encouraged to try tricks and high risk moves than in an academy where they probably want everything to be structured). You can literally name any great dribbler and it's almost inevitable the played futsal, bar Best who went one better and played with a tennis ball.
Click to expand...

That's a great point. Today players are in structured environments since 8 years old at least.
I think Ronaldo Fenomeno only formally joined a club at 14 or 15, he was just playing street and futsal before that. We also have to dicuss the decline of street football, with the massification of video games, less urban space, etc.
 
adexkola said:
Guardiola has been blamed for everything from increasing baldness to the decline in long range goals
Click to expand...

I mean it’s not just Pep, but the top level game is continually being refined down to a Moneyball-esq, data-driven process. And for good reason, it works. It’s just boring. Fewer long range goals because stats say you only score 2.4% of the time but you score 5.7% of the time if you retain possession. Fewer flair plays because stats say you’re more productive playing safe passes, etc. And so on. Pep gets the blame because he popularised it. It’s not even just the top level teams, every successful team is doing it. The players that got me in to football in the first place wouldn’t exists in todays game, they would have it trained out of them.
 
Pep is quite a guy. To have single handedly invented present-day football is impressive.
 
El Zoido said:
I mean it’s not just Pep, but the top level game is continually being refined down to a Moneyball-esq, data-driven process. And for good reason, it works. It’s just boring. Fewer long range goals because stats say you only score 2.4% of the time but you score 5.7% of the time if you retain possession. Fewer flair plays because stats say you’re more productive playing safe passes, etc. And so on. Pep gets the blame because he popularised it. It’s not even just the top level teams, every successful team is doing it. The players that got me in to football in the first place wouldn’t exists in todays game, they would have it trained out of them.
Click to expand...

Back then all stats we cared about were goal and assist, nowadays we have stats like xg, xpga, whatever else that i dont bothered to remember and crazy thing is that you often see football supporters arguing with each other with these kinda stats, footie supporters have changed from holigan slobs into stats nerds.
 


Leao from AC Milan should be mentioned here. A beautiful(sometimes annoying due to his decision makings) to watch
 
maniak said:
Was talking to a guy a few days ago who was convinced Riquelme wouldn't make it in a top team nowadays.
Click to expand...
I would argue that Riquelme, even back in the day, did not get into a top team. He was great fun to watch, but not at the level of Zidane where the team accepted his lack of wanting to put himself about.

I mentioned in another thread that a shift to a system that emphasized possession naturally lead to less risk-taking player (meaning unpredictable dribblers like Nani, Zaha, Pogba). It is not for nothing that Robben (a direct player) had his best years at Bayern under LVG & Pep, while Ribery (the street footballer) had arguably his worst.

I mentioned in another thread, that a shift to another style requires that style to win; so until Brazil wins another WC with Vinicius and Neymar like players as the protagonists, we will be stuck with this. This is why for a lot of people, Brazil NT is the second team or first team they support; if not for them (and the way they played their football in the 1970s and 1980s) , we would have been watching this "efficiency" football.
 
Oranges038 said:
The real devil is data, and data science being used to restrict the types of decisions players can make on the pitch. You can't shoot from there,it's only .01xg, turn around and pass it back to someone else and wait for the bigger xg chance.

The other problem as I see it, is that because of this flair and skill is largely being discouraged from a very early age. It's all about controlling the ball, keeping possession and playing to the system. If you don't succumb to it you are out, I'd imagine their are a lot of very skillful players out there, they just aren't allowed free reign to express themselves anymore.

You don't often enough see players commit to taking someone one and beating them with skill and pace. They'll turn back inside and play the safe pass to keep the ball, rather than risk losing it. It's very predictable and mostly quite boring.

We've seen the same shift on other sports, basketball where most of the scoring is now shots from the centre. Gaelic football is the same, boring crap now, where the ball is endlessly moved around so that the shot can be taken from right in front of the posts. Bunch of wooden gym bunny robots.

Football is not about entertainment. It's just winning and money and money and winning.



I don't think it's just flair and dribbling though, it's the art of skill and invention and moments that you go, how the feck did he do that? And as a kid you want to go outside and try to replicate it.

20 years ago you had the likes of these guys who could entertain and produce skill flair and big moments in big games.

Bergkamp, Totti, Del Piero, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Henry, Pires, Figo, Rui Costa, Duff, Rooney, Zidane, Nedved, Beckham, Raul, Shevchenko, Eto'o, Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo, Serginho, Ze Roberto, Zlatan, Quaresma, Overmars, Ljungberg, Seedorf, Juninho, Trezeguet, Van Nistelrooy + many more that I can't even remember right now

Now according to you you're getting:

Vinicius, Neymar, Thiago, Pogba, Antony, Mbappe, di Maria, Mudryk, Wirtz, Boniface??

You could add a few more

Salah,KDB, Rashford,Modric,Benzema,Bruno???

Not a lot of standout candidates.
Click to expand...

Great analysis especially around how players are told to play. It’s sad because the players themselves are all so coached from an early age that they just carry out instructions on the pitch, very few are trying to read the game and actively make choices, when in possession.
 
JogaBonitoRooney said:
Ok I think nostalgia is over doing it here. Many of these are brilliant skillful flair players but quite a few have the same level of skill as current players. Exclude the top 2 lines and Zidane and the rest aren't super flair legends incomparable to today's generation.
Click to expand...

Skill and flair is a lot more than doing an elastico, a cruyff turn or a rainbow flick.

I wasn't just talking about flair and dribbling. I was making a wider point about the levels of skill and invention. Those guys were great intelligent players, they were allowed to express themselves, but more importantly they knew when to play safe and when to use their skills.

Now, players probably have the same skill levels, but it just seems like they are not allowed to choose, preprogrammed to be safety first.

Robots.

fps said:
Great analysis especially around how players are told to play. It’s sad because the players themselves are all so coached from an early age that they just carry out instructions on the pitch, very few are trying to read the game and actively make choices, when in possession.
Click to expand...

My own personal opinion is that over coaching and in particular "joy stick" coaches particular at youngers ages. Erodes a players natural ability to be creative and ability to learn how to play and read the game, to know when to play and when to slow it down. Basically being able to tailor their approach based on what is going on around them.

I think what we are seeing now at the top levels are the first real groups of pros that have been really over coached into being system players since they were 7-10 years of age. And for the most part it doesn't make for very enjoyable viewing.
 
A great article in the Athletic about midfielders becoming coaches nowadays, and how this has contributedto the style we see now . But inside it I found this quote by Dominic Hayes a UEFA A-licensed academy coach, which kinda re-inforces what has been said in this thread.

But Haynes makes the point that this “kind of football”, to use Xavi’s words, is institutionalised. “Football associations across the globe are educating coaches with possession-based attacking principles and principles of positional play, as well as zonal-based defensive principles.

“This is often based on developmental outcomes. More touches, more enjoyment for young players, which then creates a generation of players who prefer or understand how to play this way.”

The ‘England DNA’, a national playing philosophy unveiled in 2014 for all England teams, “aimed at building possession domination”, according to the FA.

Internationally, England have evolved their play style dramatically over the past two decades. That many of England’s emerging coaches — O’Neil, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Scott Parker, Carrick, Wayne Rooney (a No 10) — were former central midfielders owes to this at least in some part.
....
I preferred it in the past when it was different coaches, different ways of playing,” Pochettino told Shearer.
 
maniak said:
Was talking to a guy a few days ago who was convinced Riquelme wouldn't make it in a top team nowadays.

In these topics I never know what to think, because football seems more boring nowadays, but I'm aware that maybe it's only nostalgia.
Click to expand...

I mean Riquelme was already a point of contention when he was playing. He sort of didn't really do it in Europe (or not for long).

Also depends what you call flair. It's not tricks or dribble but I'd say deep-lying playmakers can sometimes wow you with a long pass and their vision. Verratti is an exceptionally pleasing player when he finds those.

Onana might be a flair GK. Not Chilavert or Higuita levels perhaps.
 
maniak said:
Was talking to a guy a few days ago who was convinced Riquelme wouldn't make it in a top team nowadays.

In these topics I never know what to think, because football seems more boring nowadays, but I'm aware that maybe it's only nostalgia.
Click to expand...
He would definitely 'make it' because technically he was good and his passing range was beautiful but he'd be moulded into something a lot less exciting than he was.
 
Oranges038 said:
Bergkamp, Totti, Del Piero, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Henry, Pires, Figo, Rui Costa, Duff, Rooney, Zidane, Nedved, Beckham, Raul, Shevchenko, Eto'o, Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo, Serginho, Ze Roberto, Zlatan, Quaresma, Overmars, Ljungberg, Seedorf, Juninho, Trezeguet, Van Nistelrooy + many more that I can't even remember right now

Now according to you you're getting:

Vinicius, Neymar, Thiago, Pogba, Antony, Mbappe, di Maria, Mudryk, Wirtz, Boniface??

You could add a few more

Salah,KDB, Rashford,Modric,Benzema,Bruno???

Not a lot of standout candidates.
Click to expand...

Look where you drew the line. Trezeguet? Beckham?

Come on, most of those aren't flair players. If that's what you are looking for then you can add dozens and dozens of players who are playing today. Leao, Ödegaard, Musiala, Pedri, Gavi, Dybala, Raphinha, Richarlison, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Mahrez, Coutinho, Sancho, Bellingham, Rodrygo, Kroos and so forth.

Yes, football has become better, players are taking less stupid decisions (e. g. unnecessary longshots or hopeless through ball spamming) but that's just improvement. There are obviously plays that get you off your seat all the time. And there are just as many skillers as there were 20 years ago.
 
Zehner said:
Yes, football has become better, players are taking less stupid decisions (e. g. unnecessary longshots or hopeless through ball spamming) but that's just improvement. There are obviously plays that get you off your seat all the time. And there are just as many skillers as there were 20 years ago.
Click to expand...

Yes, who wants to see risk taking and expression when you can have ball recycling to smother the opponent. “Better”.
 
Footballs more cogs in machines now rather than individuality. Players like Trent are lauded when they wouldn't be shit in the 90s/00s.
 
Zehner said:
Look where you drew the line. Trezeguet? Beckham?

Come on, most of those aren't flair players. If that's what you are looking for then you can add dozens and dozens of players who are playing today. Leao, Ödegaard, Musiala, Pedri, Gavi, Dybala, Raphinha, Richarlison, De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Mahrez, Coutinho, Sancho, Bellingham, Rodrygo, Kroos and so forth.

Yes, football has become better, players are taking less stupid decisions (e. g. unnecessary longshots or hopeless through ball spamming) but that's just improvement. There are obviously plays that get you off your seat all the time. And there are just as many skillers as there were 20 years ago.
Click to expand...

Beckham and Trezeguet were class players. They'd absolutely walk in any team in Europe right now.

I've listed players who all played for big clubs who were all top top players who produced big moments in big games at the very highest level consistently over many years. But were exicting, skilful and creative.

Those players you've listed are all good players, I don't doubt it. I do like watching Kroos, Gavi, Bellingham, Musiala and Vinicius plus a few others.

But to me there's just no comparison between some of them and those guys I named. Someone like Raphinha and say Rivaldo, not even close. Bernardo Silva or Rui Costa? Easy decision there. Coutinho hasn't played a decent game in 5 or 6 years. Dybala is a crock. Sancho is a flop. Richarlison??? Not even close to the level of players like Eto'o or Shevchenko.

It may be better to you, but not to me. I watch football to be entertained, entertainment doesn't come from watching mistakes being forced or looking at a ball being endlessly recycled to wait for the best xg chance.
 
maniak said:
Was talking to a guy a few days ago who was convinced Riquelme wouldn't make it in a top team nowadays.

In these topics I never know what to think, because football seems more boring nowadays, but I'm aware that maybe it's only nostalgia.
Click to expand...
I think the reasons why people think Riquelme wouldn’t cut it at the top today are the same reasons that prevented him from having a longer time at the summit of European football during his own career. Riquelme needed very bespoke conditions to shine. He failed at Barcelona under Van Gaal as neither player nor manager could compromise. He succeeded for Villarreal and Argentina in systems that played to his strengths and compensated for his weaknesses. He also played his best football in Europe in the mid-2000s, when elite midfields were rammed full of physicality.

I think it would be the same today. Tactically he’d need a custom set-up, like he did then. But he excelled against physical and attritional opposition, and arguably thrived the most in the technique fest that was Argentina’s beautiful 2006 side.
 
I think when I try to define flair players it’s those that do something creative that I think most people wouldn’t try.

So Bruno and his rabona cross = flair
Rashford and his elastico = flair

An outside boot pass or back heel or no look etc scooped pass something that makes you go “Ohhh what a ball”.

I don’t just mean the dribbles.

Ibrahimovic was a good example of a flair player so much outrageously skilful stuff done in terms of shots, dribbles karate passing etc. That guy has flair.
 
the_cliff said:
Ryan Cherki and Lamine Yamal are the younger players l think that have flair, I think Vini and Rodrygo are traditional flair players as well.

In the premier league I'm struggling to even think of one now Mahrez is gone, Mahrez at City was also more conservative than he was at Leicester.

Mahrez at Leicester was always a good watch:
Click to expand...

He's part of a dying breed and the last flair player on the wing, alongside Salah in the PL, even if he was, as you said, heavily stifled by Guardiola. Probably one of the best first touches all time. His uncanny ability to effortlessy kill a ball dead no matter how fast or how high it came at him, was a joy to watch.
 
Zen86 said:
Yes, who wants to see risk taking and expression when you can have ball recycling to smother the opponent. “Better”.
Click to expand...

I'll never understand how a player attempting stupid long shots that won't go in 95/100 times is entertaining. Same goes for players spamming through balls or dribbling down blind alleys. It is annoying to watch, not entertaining. Everytime a player shoots instead of passing to a better positioned team mate, it means as a viewer you arr robbed of the opportunity to see something actually entertaining.


Oranges038 said:
Beckham and Trezeguet were class players. They'd absolutely walk in any team in Europe right now.

I've listed players who all played for big clubs who were all top top players who produced big moments in big games at the very highest level consistently over many years. But were exicting, skilful and creative.

Those players you've listed are all good players, I don't doubt it. I do like watching Kroos, Gavi, Bellingham, Musiala and Vinicius plus a few others.

But to me there's just no comparison between some of them and those guys I named. Someone like Raphinha and say Rivaldo, not even close. Bernardo Silva or Rui Costa? Easy decision there. Coutinho hasn't played a decent game in 5 or 6 years. Dybala is a crock. Sancho is a flop. Richarlison??? Not even close to the level of players like Eto'o or Shevchenko.

It may be better to you, but not to me. I watch football to be entertained, entertainment doesn't come from watching mistakes being forced or looking at a ball being endlessly recycled to wait for the best xg chance.
Click to expand...

No offense but I think this is just "back in the days everything was better" in a different phrasing. You are essentially just listing great players and then arguing they had flair. Initially this thread was about 'jogo bonito' and players such as Beckham or even Kaká had very straightforward style of plays, rarely doing skill moves. If you include such players, you'd also have to include de Bruyne, Modric or Hazard.

Anyway, your criticism rather seems directed against the 'systemization' of football as it allows player less freedom in their decision making. I think the misassumption behind this is that because of this they rarely produce moments of indicidual brillance. But in reality, the purpose of these systems is to methodically create sitiustions in which they can play out their strengths.
 
I’ll use the wrong terms here, but I wonder how much replacing the traditional wingers with wide forwards in a 3 has affected this. They’re more about movement and timing rather than individual one-on-one skills
 
Zehner said:
I'll never understand how a player attempting stupid long shots that won't go in 95/100 times is entertaining. Same goes for players spamming through balls or dribbling down blind alleys. It is annoying to watch, not entertaining. Everytime a player shoots instead of passing to a better positioned team mate, it means as a viewer you arr robbed of the opportunity to see something actually entertaining.




No offense but I think this is just "back in the days everything was better" in a different phrasing. You are essentially just listing great players and then arguing they had flair. Initially this thread was about 'jogo bonito' and players such as Beckham or even Kaká had very straightforward style of plays, rarely doing skill moves. If you include such players, you'd also have to include de Bruyne, Modric or Hazard.

Anyway, your criticism rather seems directed against the 'systemization' of football as it allows player less freedom in their decision making. I think the misassumption behind this is that because of this they rarely produce moments of indicidual brillance. But in reality, the purpose of these systems is to methodically create sitiustions in which they can play out their strengths.
Click to expand...

No offence taken. I'm getting older, everything was better 20 years ago.

Football was better back then, it had more entertaining players and thus more enjoyable to watch. Nobody back then was shooting on sight from 30 yards all the time, or dribbling down blind alleys all the time, teams all had different styles, it was faster, more direct more fluid and more entertaining. More about taking chances and playing off the percentages that the 30% chance will come off.

What your talking about is football by numbers. Players are told to play in boxes and move in areas. Where those percentages are now used to direct the players not to do certain things because it only works 30% of the time and to wait for the 60% chance. And that's fine, but it can be immensely boring.

Football to me now is largely predictable and highly regimented, where the biggest talking points after games aren't about how good the players played and how exciting the football or skills on display were. It's about VAR, Xg, pass completion % etc etc. Stats are grand, they have their place and their uses.

Anyway, Jogo bonito doesn't just apply to Brazil, or individual players who display good footwork and skill. It means to play beautifully or the beautiful game, it applies to a way of playing, to players who play the game with skill and freedom of expression, movement and an individual style. Beckham did that, Kaka did too. I'm also not sure why you keep picking out Beckham, he's probably got one of the most unique playing styles of any footballer in the last 30 years.

If you're going to say there are the same amount of top players around now who can play the game with the same type freedom of expression and skill as 20 years ago. Then I think you are probably wrong. There aren't as many teams or players who try to play with such freedom now, it just isn't possible in todays football world. There are some, but not enough and not often enough.

One can only hope that it's cyclical and eventually football will go back to being more entertaining and how it looks on the pitch is more important than how it will look on the spreadsheets Monday morning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.