"Foot on the ball"

[hopelesslyoptimistic]

Why do players think it's a good thing to stop the ball and place their boot on it, as opposed to alongside it? Inevitably, once the decision is made as to where (and how) to continue, a split second or two will be necessary to position the foot correctly (unless rolling it with the sole of the boot is the way forward!). Those split seconds allow the opposition to respond before the ball is played. "Style over substance", same as the "playing out from the back" nonsense?

Gives them more control and options to perform skills/use the ball.

You seem to have very rose tinted spectacles about how football used to be. The players were less fit, the game was slower, pitches were often awful and the balls got out of shape.

There were a lot more mistakes on the ball but these could be hidden through the physicality which was allowed which would now be pulled up as a foul.

Sure we all marvel at the YouTube highlights from games of yesteryear but if you watch the whole match a lot of it was often terrible.