Miroslav Klose on The Football Community Facebook page

mdingwall

mdingwall

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Miroslav Klose: “I stopped playing football because I no longer recognised it. Today, young players think about other things. As a child, I only thought about training and becoming someone in this sport that I always loved. At Lazio and in the national team, after each training session, I put myself in a bathtub full of ice to avoid injuries. But the young players on the team systematically refused.

When they saw me picking up the bags of balls to put them away at the end of training, they said to me 'But who tells you to do that?'.

At that moment, I said to myself: 'You're 20 years old and you can't help a 60-year-old worker?'

They care more about whether their boots go with their socks. That's why I said stop. The football I knew no longer exists.
Today's young players think first of cars, contracts with their sponsors, and their new boots. It is only after all these things that football comes. For them, their image is the most important thing. Whereas for me, all that mattered was football in its purest form.”
 
Ironically most of the fannys I can think of have all played at Man Utd. The likes of Lingard, Rashford, Pogba and probably a couple others I've missed. SAF wouldnt have put up with their antics. There will be many many more out there like that, its all about the money nowadays and not the sport itself.
 
He is bang on in that assessment, players care too much about trying to add to their existing millions with brand deals, think that people want to know their views on politics or pushing whatever agenda said brands want them to push. Just stick to playing the game, no one cares about your opinions on anything else. Entitled children.
 
Klose is one of my favourite ever strikers, one of the best ever imo.

He is right, I think today's society of youngsters favour the social media lifestyle over the job of being a professional elite athlete.
 
David Edgar said:
Thing is, I agree.

But then I remember my dad saying similar things to me in the 90s about players :))
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Well yeah. I guess the 90s was sanitised compared to the 70s, which is as far back as I go. Even the 80s were. I mean, Souness introducing flip flops in the dressing room and some kind of healthy diet was revolutionary. Today's lot have taken it to a different stratosphere though!
 
David Edgar said:
Thing is, I agree.

But then I remember my dad saying similar things to me in the 90s about players :))
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IMO there's been a massive misconception throughout human history that the current youth are worse than the previous one, they know so little but think highly of themselves is the general perception.

The only reason I believe we think that is because when you are judging your own generation at a younger age, you are doing it thinking back to a time where you knew as little & thought as highly of yourself, so there will be a clear bias.

Rather than treat generations like batches, I think that being younger & all that comes with it is just a phase we all naturally go through.*

*Excluding folk who had to fight wars & sh*t.
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
IMO there's been a massive misconception throughout human history that the current youth are worse than the previous one, they know so little but think highly of themselves is the general perception.

The only reason I believe we think that is because when you are judging your own generation at a younger age, you are doing it thinking back to a time where you knew as little & thought as highly of yourself, so there will be a clear bias.

Rather than treat generations like batches, I think that being younger & all that comes with it is just a phase we all naturally go through.*

*Excluding folk who had to fight wars & sh*t.
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Nah social media has changed your mate, all about your hits and likes and followers
 
KingCarlos72 said:
Nah social media has changed your mate, all about your hits and likes and followers
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People have always been trying to get famous. This is just a different medium. Folk were trying to do stuff to get on the telly when I was growing up as well.

The next generation will become the teenagers & the TikTok generation will moan as adults that their generation was better. It’ll just keep going on & on
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
People have always been trying to get famous. This is just a different medium. Folk were trying to do stuff to get on the telly when I was growing up as well.

The next generation will become the teenagers & the TikTok generation will moan as adults that their generation was better. It’ll just keep going on & on
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No doubt and your theory is correct but it is the new way in how teenagers are so wrapped in it.

It might be cliche, but most boys my age we playing football until it was the dark, those who didn’t were smoking or smashing windows.

Now everything has to be posted on social media not because it’s a nice thing but because it needs to be! The world is fucked and I fear for the generations to come but then again they will see the crazy new shit as the norm I suppose
 
KingCarlos72 said:
No doubt and your theory is correct but it is the new way in how teenagers are so wrapped in it.

It might be cliche, but most boys my age we playing football until it was the dark, those who didn’t were smoking or smashing windows.

Now everything has to be posted on social media not because it’s a nice thing but because it needs to be! The world is fucked and I fear for the generations to come but then again they will see the crazy new shit as the norm I suppose
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That’s true to an extent but there’s still plenty of folk playing football & that. What doesn’t help is that this generation read the no ball games sign, rather than use it as a post, like we did.

I would say though that if you look at something like politics for example. There’s a loud minority online that shout their agenda that much that it warps our perception of reality. If you just based the 2014 referendum on online chatter then we wouldn’t be in the UK anymore.

There’s still plenty of kids/teenagers who are passive observers on SM, they might spend more time on it than they should, but aren’t wrapped up in the statistics in trying to be an influencer.
 
KingCarlos72 said:
No doubt and your theory is correct but it is the new way in how teenagers are so wrapped in it.

It might be cliche, but most boys my age we playing football until it was the dark, those who didn’t were smoking or smashing windows.

Now everything has to be posted on social media not because it’s a nice thing but because it needs to be! The world is fucked and I fear for the generations to come but then again they will see the crazy new shit as the norm I suppose
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Agree with a lot of this. Do Klose's comments apply to all modern footballers or even a majority? Probably not, but it applies to a lot of them. It's also symptomatic of a wider societal problem i.e. a sense of entitlement that one should have all the nice things in life without being humble enough at times, or putting in the necessary work to attain it. Does it apply to all Gen Z? Again no, but sadly it does seem to be a lot more widespread than it was, even 15-20 years ago.

Yours, Grandad.
 
Great Britain gave football to the world, and like everything else on the planet the foreign influence has diluted the message and created an inferior product.
Trust me, It all started in the 60s with the southern Europeans and South Americans diving and play acting and has just got steadily worse.
Good old blighty should have kept the game to ourselves. :cool:
 
What a player he was. Being a Bremen fan he went a long way to have them forgetting losing Ailton to Schalke after winning the league in 04.

Outside of Rangers strikers he and Claudio Pizarro are up there for my favourites.
 
A true world class player and strangely along with Podolski and Trochowski who also played for germany, all were born in Poland
 
karen's day said:
A true world class player and strangely along with Podolski and Trochowski who also played for germany, all were born in Poland
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Both Klose and Poldi said they wanted to play for Poland but their FA didn't show any interest. In Poldi's case, when he was banging them in for Koln in Bundesliga 2 as a kid, their manager at the time said he wasn't any better than the senior players (most of whom were jobbers in hindsight).

Both went on to become 1st and 3rd highest scorers ever for Germany.
 
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mdingwall said:


Miroslav Klose: “I stopped playing football because I no longer recognised it. Today, young players think about other things. As a child, I only thought about training and becoming someone in this sport that I always loved. At Lazio and in the national team, after each training session, I put myself in a bathtub full of ice to avoid injuries. But the young players on the team systematically refused.

When they saw me picking up the bags of balls to put them away at the end of training, they said to me 'But who tells you to do that?'.

At that moment, I said to myself: 'You're 20 years old and you can't help a 60-year-old worker?'

They care more about whether their boots go with their socks. That's why I said stop. The football I knew no longer exists.
Today's young players think first of cars, contracts with their sponsors, and their new boots. It is only after all these things that football comes. For them, their image is the most important thing. Whereas for me, all that mattered was football in its purest form.”
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He forgot spit roasting.
 
Absolutely correct. The world is full of self-entitled prima donnas who don't see the need to work hard or do any more than the minimum required. And when things are not done for them, they get upset and/or offended. An 'all about me' attitude.

As soon as the powers to discipline children 'on the spot' was taken away from teachers and police, and now from even the parents, the game was a bogey.

I'm 54 now and I think my generation was the last one to experience the old way of discipline. We are now seeing the results of the changes that subsequent generations have experienced and it's only going to get worse.
 
Johnny Yen said:
Klose is bang on, another reason which set Sir Alex apart too.

The whole image thing with young players, SAF wouldn't let them wear coloured boots, earrings etc, he had a strict set of rules which were adhered too.
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Wonder where he took that standard from? Home perhaps or when he walked into Ibrox?
 
SecondBestIsNothing said:
IMO there's been a massive misconception throughout human history that the current youth are worse than the previous one, they know so little but think highly of themselves is the general perception.

The only reason I believe we think that is because when you are judging your own generation at a younger age, you are doing it thinking back to a time where you knew as little & thought as highly of yourself, so there will be a clear bias.

Rather than treat generations like batches, I think that being younger & all that comes with it is just a phase we all naturally go through.*

*Excluding folk who had to fight wars & sh*t.
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The problem is the last few generations. The new generation is extremely vapid etc. This has a lot to do with the generations beforehand due to them manipulating this generation to be that way through the media, parenting etc. Most of this was created by people with power who had for some reason a vision of how the world should be. Who knows where it all stems from. We're all human and fairly easily manipulated.

It could be argued that the people who fought in the wars started the manipulation through media so there is little to be gained by arguing which generation is at fault and which generation is exempt from the criticism.

Really, it would be nice if we all had a serious adult conversation and decided what it was that we wanted from for example, our country, and tried to find a way to showcase and push forward those values. Basically take back the initiative so we are not being controlled by companies, media etc.
 
ricicles said:
Driving past the training centre on Tuesday and I was heartened to see, what I think was B team players but maybe a younger age group, all outside picking up litter from the surrounding area.

Whatever group is was, I thought it was a good idea just to keep them grounded.
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That wisnae kids.....

That wis Kyogo B-D
 
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