The "Beautiful" Game

[Bert Le Clos]

Interesting blog on BBC Sport about the increasing number of tackles which are resulting in serious injury over the last couple of years.

 

My link

 

Having only been born in the 80's, I can't say much about the likes of Don Revie's Leeds or other teams back then. I don't think the game has gotten any "dirtier", but you can't deny there are an increasing number of horrendous challenges.

 

For me it's down to players not being taught to tackle correctly. I played football from 5 until I was 16, and not once can I remember being actually taught at a training session how to execute a tackle correctly. It was one of those skills coaches just assumed you learned yourself, or you either could or couldn't.

 

It's something we hear regularly re. Paul Scholes. "He's never been renowned for his tackling", now I love Paul Scholes as a player, but why has he never practised to imrpove his tackling? If he couldn't pass, shoot, control etc he'd be on the training ground for hours until he'd improved.

 

Phil McNulty talks about the ever increasing pace of the game, but I genuinely think it comes down to players not being taught how to sliding tackle from a young age. Interested to hear anyone else's thoughts.