Dear Editor,

Watching the World Cup in Brazil with some of the boring draws and penalty shoot-outs, which seem to have characterised this tournament more than others, I found myself thinking about how mediocre football seems these days when at the world’s premier soccer event you sit there almost praying for a goal to wake up a match.

This was my experience in the quarter-final Colombia/Brazil match and the Holland vs Argentina semi-final.

This led me to do some research and the results were quite revealing to me.

The average age of the starting Argentina squad on Wednesday is 28 years. Compared with the victorious Argentina team of 1974, the average age then was 25. I suspect that age would have had an effect on fitness, if not for endurance, so that perhaps it is hardly surprising that once the game went to extra time there was every indication that a penalty shoot-out was the only likely outcome.

Of the Argentina players used for the semis, only two players stood out to me for plying their trade in Argentina. Those players were Gago, with Boca Juniors, and Maxi Rodriquez of Newells Old Boys, who came on as a sub.

Compared with the victorious 1974 Argentina team, the reverse is almost the case. Of the regular 11 starters only Mario Kempes, who played for Valencia in Spain, played football outside of Argentina. Quite obviously the range of coaching exposure and opportunities to train together would have implications for team chemistry and cohesion, a likely reason for the quantum of underweighted passes and mistimed runs which I noticed in all Argentina games. This blunted their attacks, leading to a low average of one goal per game and the semi-stalemate in normal time, even with the likes of the great Lionel Messi on board.

For comparison too, I decided to examine how these Argentina teams stack up to one of my all-time great sides — Brazil of 1970. Even with the ageing Pele and Gerson at 29, plus defender Brito topping the scales at 30, the average age of the regular starting 11 on that side was 25.

The youngest player on that team was Clodoaldo, then only 20, who belied his age and was a mature performer, still arguably one of the best midfielders the world has ever seen, of course following in the path of Pele who started for Brazil at 17 in 1958.

One is left to wonder if today’s old ‘ballers’ could take the sweltering Mexico City heat. As an aside to that, it is worth noting that I once saw a documentary that suggested that as brilliant as Kempes was in 1978 there was talk in some circles then that Maradona, barely 18 at the time, was better than he.

All the players of the 1970 Brazilian squad, including subs, played domestic football in Brazil, and while football has naturally moved on, as it should, to the point where many of the better players of most countries play outside their country of birth, it seems to be the case that as a result of advances such as these the game at the national level has lost out to club football.

It strikes me therefore that if the World Cup is ever again to regain its relevance as the major football showcase, FIFA might have to make some changes to the structure of the game to impact club football so that a better balance is struck between playing for your club vs representing your country in order that adequate time is left for recuperation from the grind of club assignments and bonding with team mates at a national level.

Will the world ever again see a 17- or 18-year-old football genius the likes of Pele or Maradona? I wonder.

Clive Stewart

clive.stewart262@gmail.com