How the Szoboszlai Vs. Guler Beef Highlights the Pitfalls of Modern Football
People are up in arms on social media after a feud between Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai and Real Madrid’s Arda Guler. The initial incident unfolded during the UEFA Nations League play-off match between Hungary and Turkey. In the match, Turkey secured a 3-0 victory over Hungary, with Güler contributing a goal. Tensions escalated when Güler gestured for Szoboszlai to be quiet following a physical altercation. The two have now gone back and forth on social media and the whole thing has become quite the story on X and in the media. Real Madrid fans are backing Guler, and Liverpool fans are backing Szoboszlai… for some reason. The truth about this whole situation is that it demonstrates the key problem that is corrupting modern football and the discourse around it; the undervaluing of actual footballing ability in exchange for great athleticism.
Responses
After the incident and more notably his team being knocked out, embarrassingly, Szoboszlai had the audacity to take to social media.
The 1088’ is a reference to the total amount of minutes that Arda Guler has played this season for Real Madrid. Szoboszlai has played almost triple the amount and the obvious point of the post was to show that Guler can’t even get minutes for his team, and thus shouldn’t be trash-talking. This would be a great point if their situations were even remotely comparable. However, they're not and I would love to see how many minutes Szoboslai would manage to get if he was at Real Madrid. Regardless, Guler clapped back on Instagram, with this post.
Yeah… based on how Hungary just got slapped 6-1 on aggregate to Turkey, I have no idea why Szoboszlai was even so confident to speak out. Guler is the clear winner of this “beef” just based on this alone. These two are out of their world-class teams and both are supposed to be the stars of their international squads... allegedly. Szoboszlai is literally the captain of the Hungary team and they got slapped both home and away, and he still had the gall to run his mouth on Social Media. Quite embarrassing, and Guler was absolutely right to respond and point out these facts.
The Bigger Picture
Liverpool fans on X have enjoyed clowning Arda Guler, claiming that Szoboszlai is a better player and that’s why Guler holds the bench for Real Madrid. In fact, most of the noise on social media is in favor of Szoboslai, and it’s just sad. We are at a stage in football where we are comparing a technically gifted player in Guler, to a 6-foot track star in Dominik Szoboszlai. There is not a single tangible thing on the football pitch that Szoboszlai is better at than Guler, other than running, and yet football fans are convinced that he is a much better player.
This is the state of modern football. Technique, Football IQ, touch, ball-striking, all things of the past. Instead, we need great athletes like Szoboszlai, Jermey Doku, Brennan Johnson, Rasmus Hojlund, and just about any other of these other players underperforming at top clubs. If you have pace and/or power you will end up on a top football club. Szoboszlai’s game can’t even compare to Guler’s. Guler could play 10 minutes in a season and he is still the better player because of his skill. Of course, they play different positions, Guler being #10, and Szoboszlai a box-box #8, however, I would take Guler in a team 9 times out of 10. Szoboszlai is a technically inept footballer who relies solely on athleticism. The best way to explain the monumental difference in quality between these two players is to say this. If Szoboszlai had the height and physical attributes of Guler would he even be on Liverpool? The answer is obviously, no. He probably wouldn’t be in the Premier League and you can say the same for so many of the athletically gifted players in the league.
It’s nothing personal towards these players but athleticism is a crutch, that has carried these players through every level of football, to the point where it was unimportant for these players to hone their skills. That’s exactly why we have the Rasmus Hojlunds of the world. A 6’3” disaster who can barely trap the ball, but has managed to find his to one of the biggest clubs in the world. Szoboszlai, to his credit, is on a much higher level than a Hojlund in every regard, but the point still stands. Athleticism is what makes the sport exciting. These are special people, doing incredible things that the average person couldn’t imagine. However, the very best are the players who have an amazing mix of athleticism and skill. Modern Football is rapidly skewing to the side of athleticism, producing these robotic players who are a bore to watch, and idiotic fans just eat it up. There are actual human beings on this planet who think Jeremy Doku is a top-class footballer.They conveniently ignore how all these actions result in nothing and ignore his complete lack of footballing IQ. The whole game is sadly heading in this direction, and that’s why football fans on social media will argue to the death that Szoboszlai is better than Guler, solely based on his tenacity. This isn’t a relay race. Football is at its best when footballers play football and that's what the fans deserve to see.