To all these questions, one generation of nostalgic fans after another will brandish their icons. The oldest will tell you: Pelé was much better than Romário; the next generation: don't compare Romário and Ronaldinho; the next: Neymar is no match to Ronaldo Nazário; the next: Endrick doesn't have Neymar's talent. Those days are gone, you should have taken more photos.
In any case, the ball keeps rolling. The game is faster, more technical and more tactical than ever before. All the indicators point to this. And it has to be said, football's governing bodies are more innovative than the so-called creative corporations.
UEFA has implemented a new format for the Champions League.
FIFA will inaugurate the Club World Cup in June in the United States.
It's obviously too early to say whether it will be a success. But whatever we think. And I certainly wouldn't be the first advocate of these developments. It's innovative. It innovates without rehashing what's already been done.
Nostalgia is never more than an invitation to embrace the present. And by no means to mope about the past. It's about thinking, documenting, writing, photographing and creating our lived experience as our passion for football evolves.
It means asking ourselves what we still need to build here and now?
It means working to build our own archives.
It means helping to create our own spaces in which we can thrive.
It means consenting to tomorrow.
And football, with its constant adaptations to the times, invites us to do just that. From the immersion of television in living rooms to the creation of new competitions, football photography adapts, adjusts, settles into the interstices of the game and becomes the key player to understand the world through football, the changes of the everyday life, and cataloguing the memories to come. — HL