It was a lot of fun watching this 1999 match between Lazio and Milan. Lazio really deserved to win this one: Abbiati kept them in it. Seeing young looking versions of Mihajlovic, Nesta, Ambrosini, Salas, Inzaghi, Maldini, and especially Abbiati, whom I only ever knew as a grumpy looking bald old man... surreal.
The most striking thing about football from this period was how direct it was: not just as a percentage but period, very few backwards passes were played, in entire matches: almost every ball went towards the opponent's goal, often times by just thumping it forward.
The players also looked so loose and casual, and I think it reflects how society is different: everything today is so obsessed with safety, today they don't even let people into football stadiums because they might get the sniffles, and if they do the fans have to wear hazmat suits. And today's football is obsessed with having seventy, eighty percent pass completion, which means three quarters of the passes go backwards or sideways.
The same is true if you look at NFL statistics; take people like Troy Aikman or Dan Marino: physically two of the best hall-of-fame athletes to ever play the quarterback position-- yet if you look at their career numbers, they threw almost as many interceptions as touchdowns, and had completion rates in the mid-fifties. The style in that sport as well was much more direct, risk-oriented, and aggressive.
On that same "safety" note, this match illustrates how much I hate "VAR": when Shevchenko went down, or when it looked like Maldini's arm stopped a cross, players complained for like ten seconds, and then just got on with the game.
One player I could see being almost unplayable in this era of football is Sergej Milinkovic-Savic: his height, physique, and obsession with little flicks and tricks, while being less accurate with today's style of passing game, shows me he's really a man out of time.
The "dark horse" player who surprised me the most from this match was Sergio Conceição-- he was like an even better version of Massimo Oddo: super solid defensive stature, phenomenal crossing ability, great on the dribble, highly technical, and with good pace too. He must have been considered a world class fullback in his day.
Part of what makes football such a fun game is how much continuity it has had: unlike the NFL, which hyper-knee jerk changes the rules every five minutes, outside of the abomination that is "VAR" FIFA, the confederations, and the league governing bodies have done a phenomenal job of resisting temptations to mess with the formula: from a rules and flow standpoint, this 1999 match looked just like one from the past couple of years.
To end, a real shame: when I finally got the chance in America to start watching Italian Football in the 2005 season, huge parts of this Milan side-- Shevchenko, Ambrosini, Gattuso, Costacurta, Serginho, Maldini-- were still in place. Milan finished third. Whereas, other than Ballotta and Inzaghi I think this entire 1999 Lazio side had been liquidated due to the debt by 2005, with Nesta even switching sides-- Lazio finished three points from relegation.