Watching Football

[Dudski]

Good thread this.

To a newcomer I’d say the pace of the game at the top level is characterised as ‘slow-slow-slow-then-quick-lightening quick’! The speed is both of thought (seeing a pass or making a run) and of physics.

*blatant bragging to follow….

I played at a good level when I was a kid (Spurs and Palace, then non-league, then pub football!!). I was 5’10 at 14 and was moved to CB where I had the game in front of me, which suited me very well. Trouble was I never got much past that height and was inevitably moved into midfield. At Palace, for example, I was continually frustrated by my lack of speed. I was slowish-ish in a straight sprint but that’s not the entirety of it. The game seemed to be being played around me.

The kids who ‘had it’ either had searing pace, combined with impressive athleticism AND/OR had the ability and touch to buy themselves time to make the right decisions.

As for where to watch in the ground, I’d say I used to like the freedom of terraces to choose to watch at pitch level some of the time and then at others higher up to see the tactical plans play out.

I sit up in the 5th tier Paxton/West at WHL where I can see a lot of the movement and space. On the few occasions I’ve sat down low at the new ground I’m amazed by footballers touch (rightly it’s second nature).

The best player I ever played with was Jamie Redknapp, who could see things we mere mortals just couldn’t. As Spurs fans we were accustomed to thinking of him as slow (and he was for the average PL player) but his slow would have been our lightening quick!

Seeing someone like Redknapp up close must of been a great experience. What you're saying makes me think the TV coverage has room to improve It would take a lot of coordination from a producer who understood the game, but you'd think for a few of the biggest games they would add some additional camera coverage.

On thing that is hard to pickup on TV is what changes managers make at the half. You can see that something clearly is different, but it's not obvious to me what was done to take something away from the other side or open the attack. Surprisingly, the TV commentators don't seem to pick up on things for the most part, more that they react to what you can already see.

 

[Zomb]

Absolute fraud of a player for us, still disgusts me he was our captain

Do you all know the story about a guy who run a website called Topspurs criticising him, and calling him out when he fucked off to the Caribbean for a break when he should have been training? Junior Twitch got his mobile and called him up and had a go at him and Jim told him to F off

Agree by the way. Absolute wage thief

 

[Henry Hotspur]

Redknapp at Spurs or as a kid? He was a good player early in his career but awful at Spurs

As a kid. Clearly gonna be a top level professional. But yeah, cart horse pace when he came to us. Shouldn’t have been made captain.

 

[Henry Hotspur]

Seeing someone like Redknapp up close must of been a great experience. What you're saying makes me think the TV coverage has room to improve It would take a lot of coordination from a producer who understood the game, but you'd think for a few of the biggest games they would add some additional camera coverage.

On thing that is hard to pickup on TV is what changes managers make at the half. You can see that something clearly is different, but it's not obvious to me what was done to take something away from the other side or open the attack. Surprisingly, the TV commentators don't seem to pick up on things for the most part, more that they react to what you can already see.

The TV commentators and pundits try to walk a line between being informative and generating ‘content’ (click bait). Most falling onto the side of the latter.

Some manage a few nuggets of quality insight, which I’m always grateful for as I wouldn’t have spotted it - esp when watching Spurs, as I tend to get caught up in the emotion of our performances.

Gary O’Neil did the double over us with cute managerial tweaks. Fulham clearly had a game plan which worked. A few pundits during the game and after on podcasts explained how these sides had nullified Spurs and exploited their weaknesses.

Do you watch NFL. As a casual viewer, im always amazed and grateful to Tony Romo for his insight and analysis

 

[Arthur Wensleydale]

Boot it in the net. Hope this helps.

 

[Dudski]

The TV commentators and pundits try to walk a line between being informative and generating ‘content’ (click bait). Most falling onto the side of the latter.

Some manage a few nuggets of quality insight, which I’m always grateful for as I wouldn’t have spotted it - esp when watching Spurs, as I tend to get caught up in the emotion of our performances.

Gary O’Neil did the double over us with cute managerial tweaks. Fulham clearly had a game plan which worked. A few pundits during the game and after on podcasts explained how these sides had nullified Spurs and exploited their weaknesses.

Do you watch NFL. As a casual viewer, im always amazed and grateful to Tony Romo for his insight and analysis

What I don't like about some Premier League announcers is they remind me of weather vanes. Whatever team is in the lead has it locked down and the other side is hopeless. Then the lead shifts and all their talking points change. I don't know the names of all the announcers, but the ones I learn the most from are the less well known ex-players working on the secondary games. They are more likely to give you some insight from a player's perspective. It's fun for me, too, because I'm starting to pick up on the regional accents. If I have trouble understanding them they usually have more interesting things to say.

As for Tony Romo, I don't watch as much NFL now. Once I found the "real" football I mostly lost interest except for the occasional college game. But I agree with you about him. Listening to him I have gotten a better understanding of the NFL and why he had success beyond what was expected of him in college. Smart guy.

 

[Dudski]

Boot it in the net. Hope this helps.

You should talk to Mr. Werner.

 

[BernardMatthews]

Seeing someone like Redknapp up close must of been a great experience. What you're saying makes me think the TV coverage has room to improve It would take a lot of coordination from a producer who understood the game, but you'd think for a few of the biggest games they would add some additional camera coverage.

Once upon a time sky used to do player cam where you could watch a player but dialled that type of thing back.
I guess from a commercial viewpoint it wasn’t worth it.

 

[Dudski]

Once upon a time sky used to do player cam where you could watch a player but dialled that type of thing back.
I guess from a commercial viewpoint it wasn’t worth it.

I would go a different route. I'd have a small box in the bottom right of the screen that showed the entire field. Or, if it was possible to generate a computer image that did the same thing that might work. You'd have to make the graphics distinctly show different color for each team if you did that.

 

[Dudski]

The hardest part of the game to visualize for me is midfield, simply because the camera view is straight across so you lose a sense of distances between players and the lanes/channels they work in. If you had the money to do it right you'd almost want a camera in the stands at either end and when the ball is being advanced through midfield you'd switch to the camera shot from there. The midfield shot misses a lot.

 

[dondo]

Was at the spurs Man City cup match this season and seeing the way city pass and move at the ground where you can see the whole picture was something else. Foden was amazing that night and I never fully appreciated him as a player until I saw him live

 

[Zomb]

Was at the spurs Man City cup match this season and seeing the way city pass and move at the ground where you can see the whole picture was something else. Foden was amazing that night and I never fully appreciated him as a player until I saw him live

There’s always a few players that stand out live. Bernardo Silva was superb when Monaco ripped us at Wembley. Viera was always the best player on the pitch, Pires was another player and the flip side is I never really rated Henry live….

 

[dondo]

There’s always a few players that stand out live. Bernardo Silva was superb when Monaco ripped us at Wembley. Viera was always the best player on the pitch, Pires was another player and the flip side is I never really rated Henry live….

Ginola was amazing too. You just didn’t notice how physically strong he was until you saw him live. Gary Neville tried to kick him one game at WHL , Ginola easily stood up to it and embarrassed him for most of the game until Nevile got himself sent off

 

[Sir Alfred Conn]

Fascinating thread this. I watch a lot of lower league (Blackpool) and non league (Maidstone United) football. The difference in speed and possession is incredible to when I watch Spurs
Hope you can get over for a game sometime

 

[Zomb]

Ginola was amazing too. You just didn’t notice how physically strong he was until you saw him live. Gary Neville tried to kick him one game at WHL , Ginola easily stood up to it and embarrassed him for most of the game until Nevile got himself sent off

Was at that game, completely agree. Powerful and a touch from heaven, utterly two footed

 

[BernardMatthews]

Fascinating thread this. I watch a lot of lower league (Blackpool) and non league (Maidstone United) football. The difference in speed and possession is incredible to when I watch Spurs
Hope you can get over for a game sometime

This is the main area tv fails for me.

It’s really hard to understand the speed they play / think at. But I imagine an F1 fan would say the same.

 

[BernardMatthews]

Taking about the elite skills the top level have has just reminded me about a friend doing one of his badges.
Must be going back a good 10 years ago. Haven’t thought about this for a while.

Really not sure how it all came about but he ended up doing a week long course with a friend of his who had played for Spain at the World Cup, in CL finals, won awards for best European midfielder. Absolute elite quality player wandering into a normal coaching course!!

I remember him saying he had to really think about some stuff but his mate just sauntered through the course.
Obviously second nature to him but he said he just made everything look so easy. You just don’t get how good these guys are.

I do wonder what the other people on the course thought as they realised who was in their group on the first day!! You are normally on a course with about 20 other people with similar backgrounds to yourself. Maybe a couple of young pros. Not Spanish internationals.

He was actually due to do some coaching with me and another Spanish guy at our development age group at one point but it never worked out.
C’est la vie….

 

[Dudski]

Fascinating thread this. I watch a lot of lower league (Blackpool) and non league (Maidstone United) football. The difference in speed and possession is incredible to when I watch Spurs
Hope you can get over for a game sometime

That's the plan. There's nothing like being there in person.

 

[Audere!Audere!]

Taking about the elite skills the top level have has just reminded me about a friend doing one of his badges.
Must be going back a good 10 years ago. Haven’t thought about this for a while.

Really not sure how it all came about but he ended up doing a week long course with a friend of his who had played for Spain at the World Cup, in CL finals, won awards for best European midfielder. Absolute elite quality player wandering into a normal coaching course!!

I remember him saying he had to really think about some stuff but his mate just sauntered through the course.
Obviously second nature to him but he said he just made everything look so easy. You just don’t get how good these guys are.

I do wonder what the other people on the course thought as they realised who was in their group on the first day!! You are normally on a course with about 20 other people with similar backgrounds to yourself. Maybe a couple of young pros. Not Spanish internationals.

He was actually due to do some coaching with me and another Spanish guy at our development age group at one point but it never worked out.
C’est la vie….

Come on then...

who was the Spaniard?

 

[BernardMatthews]

Come on then...

who was the Spaniard?

He never went into coaching so will let him have his privacy! You’d know him if you’re anywhere around 50 and follow football.

However another friend is very good friends with carlos corberán, as they played together at Valencia and youngsters and have stayed in touch over the years.

We were talking about going up to see his academy setup when he was at Leeds before he got promoted to working with Bielsa. Crazy how his career kicked on.
One match away from being a premier league manager at one point….. sliding doors moment right there.