Football is a beautiful game and most of us are passionate about football. We have watched different generations of this game. In South African football we will remember we had a generation with likes of Ace Ntsoelegoe, Jomo Sono and Kaizer Moutaung, and then there was the generation with likes of Doctor Khumalo, Neil Tovey, Mark Williams, Mark Fish, Shaun Bartlett. The 1996 Afcon champions were in this generation.
We have seen different type of football during different generations and modern football is extremely different, obviously football has been evolving with time. If this is the case why do we expect current players to play like former players? For example you will find people comparing Pule Ekstein with the legendary Doctor Khulamo. There is nothing wrong with comparing them because we want them to reach the level of their idols and even higher, but there's definitely something wrong with comparing them because want them to produce the same "magic", such as Shibobos, step overs and Scara Ngobese's 360 degrees turn in the middle of the park.
If that was working well for the former generations, it because their standard of football was allowing it to done, but the modern football is no longer about Shibobos. The current football is more tactical and players have better technical abilities, because of infrastructures in place especially.
Considering that football is about space and time, attacking team must try to pass the ball forward as quick as they possibly can, while the defending team must regroup ( or recover) as quick as possible to deny the opposition the goal scoring chance. Hence I understand why coaches like Pitso Mosimane disapprove the showboating. When showboating you waste the needed time to pass the ball forward and create a scoring chance for your team.
Therefore I believe there's no need of showboating on the field of play, a trick or two when required can be done. There's very little time for tricks and those tricks should benefit the team going forward or at least in ball rotation to draw the opposition players out of their defensive positions. With the purpose of exploiting the space behind them, that why some teams win with big margins but with lesser ball possessions
This article was written by a Soccer Laduma reader
