@dookie Said
Why "obtuse"?
I simply do not accept your answer. I understand it.....
i.e. that the "modern game" is played at a pace unknown in the past, the implication that the modern player is so finely tuned physically that (i.e. Hamstrings like piano wires) that two games a week demands too much.
I hold to the proposition that GIVEN substitutes (thus players often not having to play the full 90 minutes) and the greater lack of physical contact (plus the other advantageous changes I listed) to play two games a week for a full season is perfectly reasonable.
A superficially valid argument I'd agree. Substitutions have made a difference to the game but are seldom used for the purposes of injuries or to rest exhausted players. More likely they are used for tactical reasons in the modern game.
Taking a player off five minutes before the end of the match is unlikely to make much difference to his aerobic output. Rather, the coach is likely to use a substitution to break up the game at a time when his team may be under pressure..... waste a half a minute or so in the process of the changeover or shift the tactical pattern of the match (eg: take off a striker and replace him with a defender when his team are winning 1-0 in the last five minutes).
However... if we bring injuries into the equation, then there is little doubt that a massive shift has changed since, say, the 1970s or 80s (before the Premier League era). I think you'd agree that collisions occurring at slow speed (in the 70s or 80s) are less forcible than those that occur at high speed (like,now).
I'll shift the emphasis onto my specialist sport of rugby.
I watched my dad play rugby and although he is the loveliest man in the world and I love him more than anybody, he was a right sod on a rugby pitch. He asked - and gave - no quarter. I once saw him with his shirt off in the garden, covered with bruises the day after being raked with boot studs in a match. He laughed and said "They're not bruises, they're medals."
That mentality has been driven out of the game now. Players are much more protected by the laws of the game, but I'm not convinced that is entirely motivated by compassion for their feelings. Rather, rugby (and football) players are an expensive commodity, playing on big contracts.... and their masters want their moneysworth. Kenny R out for three months with broken ribs and concussion... on full pay.... is not giving value for money.
And so they change the rules to make the game "safer" to play...out of concern for the player, of course.
And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.
For sure... I agree that players are much more protected by the laws of the game than before. But the injuries they tend to suffer now are not split heads, broken collar bones and lost teeth. Now they suffer torn intercostals, ruptured achilles tendons and shredded groins. Ouch. None of these are impact injuries. They are all caused by unnatural movement at high speed, such as occurs in a rugby match. I know.... I've played this game.
Again, the pace of the game contributes to the problem.
You can't tell rugby or football players to play more slowly. They want to win and if it takes running at full tilt into a big (and invariably ugly) prop forward to win, they'll do it.
The mentality hasn't changed. Only the velocity at which the game is played has.