Could this not be more easily explained by the sharp declines in popularity of baseball? That players are stronger and faster is not a surprise given the huge spike in steroid use. But baseball went from the 'national past time' to a game that's been on a sharp decline for many decades now. Most skills seem to follow a power law, and so as you reduce the population playing something you greatly reduce the chance of finding the outlier among outliers.

Chess is a great example of this because it has no barriers to entry and an absolutely enormous player pool. And at the top there's this sort of oscillating pattern where everybody will be more or less equal, but then suddenly some outlier among outliers will show up and just completely dominant the game for many years, and in some cases even decades - to the point of being the best player across multiple generations of players.

On the other hand football has seen two of its best players ever (Messi and Cr. Ronaldo) just break all sorts of records until very recently, with Messi having a decent chance of being named the best football player of all times.

Football (and most other similar sports) offer more chances for creativity and variation than batting in baseball. Hitting a baseball is a very narrow and defined task with limited room for novel development or breakthroughs. Unless there are significant rule changes in baseball we're not going to see any batters revolutionise the act of batting in any meaningful way.

Getting a ball past several defenders and scoring a goal on the other hand can be done in a near infinite number of ways, meaning there is much more room for variation, improvement and evolution.

The closest equivalent I can think of in football is a penalty kick, and I don't think there is any evidence that players are getting significantly better at scoring off penalties.

> Football (and most other similar sports) offer more chances for creativity and variation than batting in baseball.

I agree, with the caveat that football is becoming more and more like baseball and other similar (mostly US) sports which are very heavy on numbers and on stats. The recent Norwegian sensation, Haaland, seems exactly to fit that trend, as he's not particularly super-good at anything but his numbers have just been phenomenal in the last 3-4 years (when he's been fit to play, that is).

We'll see if the future will bring more Kevin De Bruyne-type of players (i.e. a very creative guy) or more Haalands.

Football has intentionally changed to become a more attractive sport.

Mostly by cracking down on violent play and letting forwards use their skills without being injured.

I would put Ronaldo above Messi purely because he's demonstrated elite status in a variety of scenarios compared to Messi who spent most of his career at a team that was built around feeding him (and once he left, he has not performed anywhere near as well.)

It may seem like football hasn't changed but just think of the overall improvements in training, fitness, nutrition, sports medicine... Nevermind changes to the way matches are officiated and even in some cases the rules have changed. And the pitches! Imagine some players from the past playing on today's laser-levelled pitches where the length of the grass is mm perfect (and specified in the manager's contract!) instead of puddles and patches of bare dirt.

Messi is 35 and Ronaldo is 37. They emerged 20 years ago. The closest talent that the current generation can offer is Mbappe, and he is more one dimensional than either. Can you name someone else under age of 20?

However, watching any random league game from the big five (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France), the standard is very high. Most players are amazingly fit and skillful, control ball extremely well. Teams play with cohesive plans. A lot of nice team movements. It shows that the standard at the professional level has risen considerably in the last few decades.

The downside of course is that it makes games more mechanical and less emotional, and it's harder to tell one team from another.

> Messi having a decent chance of being named the best football player of all times.

There is no such thing. Being considered by many, yes.

Erling Haaland is younger than Mbappe.

And so did Tennis with the top 3 (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic) dominating the sport over 15 years