You only have to watch full 90 minutes of games from back then to see that football is on another planet to what it was decades ago.
I’ve seen the England 1966 World Cup final, the City 1969 FA Cup final and the Brazil 1970 World Cup final in full in recent years and these games and players aren’t even at Chanpionship level or speed of game, pace of players, athleticism of players or even quality of passing, skill and goals. What was classed and given as examples as wonderful skill and play from back then is just run-of-the-mill play from today.
Look at this goal from a Championship team in recent years:
If that was scored in 1970 it’d still be shown today, yet I hadn’t even seen of that Blackburn goal until someone else showed me.
Most of all, the defending was absolutely woeful back then. The Italy side that played Brazil in 1970 gave Brazil ten metres of space for every pass, if that happened today there’d be an inquiry about not trying and match fixing. Bolton made it a damn site harder for Blackburn to score that^ goal than Italy did that famous goal of Brazil’s.
Today’s City team would absolutely hammer the 1968 City side. I’d go for 7-1.