Sorry. I have to disagree. The old style boots were over twice as heavy as they are now, Also, watch some videos of matches pre 1980's, the pitches were more like fields than the state of the art things they are now. And those footballs were extremely heavy once they got wet and covered in mud. All these things had gone from the game, long before Ronaldo and Messi were even born.
I have been watching football for almost 50 years.
LONDON CITY
Olympic Stadium...East London
Season 47...........Manager Level 33
Even now you can find worst pitches then before and look at the that from final tournaments like Euro, World Cup, they was perfect.
About boots, when I was younger I had this old model and is not so hard to play with them but of course is better with this new model.
But now the quality of football is much better then before, there are a lot of skilled players comparing with years 1940-1980.