Football’s fluid and everchanging methodology has stamped it’s influence on the players

The latter side dominated and walked away with all three points in a hearty game despite only having seen 45% of the ball. That was the way Liverpool had always intended to play their football with Jurgen Klopp building arguably the perfect team to play their football on the transition. Quick forwards, all-action midfielders and defenders that are better at anticipating and starting moves than most other players that play the position. It’s the perfect combination and exactly the reason why the Reds ended their three-decade wait for a Premier League title.

But instead, Didier Deschamps used Blaise Matuidi as a winger to allow Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe the opportunity to not defend if they didn’t want to. To allow Olivier Giroud to stay rooted at the center of the field at all times and become the focal point of the team. Probably why the Frenchman didn’t score as much was expected from him but the game-plan worked. Look at those two games all alone and it means nothing but take a harder look and a trend appears. Football has changed and it has been drastic and almost instant with the move from tiki-taka to transition play, moving rapidly.

Instead, the role of the playmaker has gone beyond just creating moves but instead players like Ozil are expected to do everything. There are a few exceptions to the rule but it’s why the number 10s, the pure strikers/goal poachers are nowhere to be seen. Or rather, a rarity in today’s game. Instead, you have an all-action superstar who can practically do everything they’re asked of. Not just that the way the game has evolved has been rapid and instantaneous which has seen players become far more fluid. Gone are the days where a particular set of attributes shoe-horns a player into one position.

A near-perfect example is the RB Leipzig team as barring the center-forwards, like Yussuf Poulsen and Alexander Sorloth, everyone else plays multiple positions. Look back and there are bound to be thousands if not hundreds of examples. The footballing world is overfilled with those but the main takeaway is the fact that the position hasn’t changed. The defensive midfielders are still defensive midfielders, the full-backs are still full-backs and the strikers remain strikers but what has changed is the way the role has changed. A striker now can’t just score goals, but he has to create goals, he has to be a part of the build-up play, press and do everything else

The midfielders are no longer just number 8s or 10s but instead, the two positions have been merged together into one rather magnificent all-action star. Playmaking has been taken over by defensive midfielders because in the age of the transition, moving from back-to-front has to be rapid and instant which has seen defensive midfielders become more than just your average players. It's why controllers like David Silva, Andres Iniesta, Santi Cazorla and co are being phased out with the next-gen moving out wide, as full-backs, and deeper because that's where space is.

That does beg the question, however, because the modern players do so much more than their counterparts from yesteryear, does that make them better than they are? Does it diminish the legend of the Ronaldo Nazzario’s, the Zinedine Zidane’s, then Pep Guardiola’s or even the Dennis Bergkamp’s of the past because they were near perfect but only at a handful of things? It really shouldn’t because this is just the way football evolves and it has always been the case and always will be the case. Those men of yesteryear were gods in their own way, shape and form.

They did things so well and brilliantly, that footballers in this day and age have been forced to find their own way through. Find their own method of separating themselves from the pack which is why, years down the line, everyone will remember Samuel Eto playing left-back for Inter Milan against Barcelona in Jose Mourinho's team on their way to the club's first treble. Or Lionel Messi and how he didn't just adapt to the times as they flowed but adapted in a way that only a true genius and a once in a generation player can. Few will, however, remember just how lethal and brilliant Robert Lewandowski which defines this article in a sentence.