I still believe that the best writing about football/soccer and basketball happened during the blog era. It's not a fault of the writers now, and there are great ones, just the profit incentives of companies turns everyone into experts trying to solve teams and players.

There's only a handful who watch games and players and can write about the wonder of them, rather than going into General Manager mode of solving the player, tactics, and problems at the clubs. Not that that quality isn't important and essential, but it's the entire landscape.

The irony is that writing like that comes out when a player dies or retires.

Before anyone kills me, it's honestly a personal opinion, and I'm not including myself as a writer, but a reader. And I don't blame anyone but the system that shackles that creativity for expertise, jargon, and constant output. I know many writers also are exhausted by it.