Sundays at the fireside #3
Where Have All the Mavericks Gone?
Where have all the mavericks gone from football?
When I was growing up, they were everywhere. You couldn’t move for them. Kaká, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo Nazário, Figo, Raúl, Zidane, Beckham, Gerrard, Keane, Totti. The list goes on.
I’ve missed plenty of names out, and some of you might argue that not all of those players were mavericks. Maybe not. But they were proper footballers. Players who could grab a game by the scruff of its neck and drag their team to victory through sheer ability, personality and will.
It feels like we’ve lost so much of that in the modern game.
Football today is cleaner, more structured and more tactical than ever before. Every movement is coached, every pass analysed, every risk measured. Even the modern mavericks seem to have their edges smoothed off by systems and structure. Isn’t that right, Jack Grealish?
So where have they all gone?
Is it simply that players are no longer allowed to play as though they’re still on the playground? To play with a smile on their face, with freedom, imagination and no fear of making a mistake?
There are youngsters coming through who still have that spark. You see flashes of it every weekend. The question is whether they’ll be encouraged to keep it—or whether it’ll be coached out of them before they reach their peak.
Football has evolved in many ways, and some of those changes have undoubtedly made the game better.
But I do wonder if we’ve lost something along the way.
Thank you for visiting the Dwelling Place.