What is beautiful football? A definition that has been warped over time

It’s the last minute of the game. Desperate times. And so, with team-mates pouring forward, the centre-half decides to go route one: sticks it in the mixer, plays a huge, raking long ball looking for the big man up top. The striker uses his strength, holds it up, takes a touch, and then smashes the ball into the top corner.

Now, how did you imagine that goal? What was the picture in your mind? Maybe you’re envisioning a lower-league game, maybe under lights, driving rain, mud, that sort of thing. In fact, the goal I’m describing is Dennis Bergkamp for Holland against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup. And the point of this exercise is to demonstrate that when we talk about styles of football, or more specifically the idea of aesthetics in football - the subject of this column - so much of it is tied up in the words we use.

“Beautiful football” is one of those terms that gets strewn around with impunity, despite being spectacularly ill-defined. It has, at various times in football’s history, connoted both immaculate defence and immaculate attack. It has been used to describe mazy wingers, visionary midfielders, towering headers and well-oiled formations. These days, it seems to attach itself to whichever side Pep Guardiola happens to be managing at the time.