When I used to play football many moons ago, football was regarded as a man's game. Blood and guts..... if you got hurt, you'd pretend it didn't hurt and carry on as normal. We'd offer each out on the pitch and have a beer afterwards.
Nowadays, it's almost a non contact sport and a very different game altogether with play acting Jessies and cheating barstewards who have a drink afterwards anyways.
My daughter is a supreme athlete who plays centre forward for her club but she's protected a million times more than I was and no way would she have have survived in my day. Is this good or bad? I don't know.