The scourge of diving...

therecklessone

I'm watching Goals on Sunday right now, and they're covering the Liverpool-Fulham game.

They've just shown the Liverpool penalty shouts, the 2nd one was a definite peno. What's annying me is the reaction of Kamara and co to Ian Pearce's attempt to disguise the handball by holding his face as if he got smacked in the mush by the ball.

They rightly highlighted diving as a problem in the game earlier, showing a number of examples, but Joey Barton made a good point re. diving, saying his own player Corradi was at fault yesterday but that consistency is the key in dealing with it.

So why laugh off an obvious attempt to cheat (feigning injury to hide a handball)? Why the double standards?

The reaction to Newcastle's Steven Taylor when he got away with his "save2 on the line a few weeks back was exactly the same from the media, laughed it off.

wheres me jumpa

Was Pearce punished for it? Didnt see it.

More or less in agreement with you on this. The best example highlighting this is when a defender dives, he is "using all his experience". Heinze is a great example, when coming out with the ball or clearing, he entices tackles and wins the freekick. Its ok for a defender to do it but if a forward does it there is outrage.

I was delighted to see Poll send Corradi off. My biggest gripe about these situations is that players arent punished enough for it. Corradi will think long and hard about doing it again now. A similar punishment for Ronaldo will help curb his tendancy to go down too.

mike65

Pearce got a yellow.

Any 'dive/suspected dive' should be subject to a video panel. If found guilty the player should get a straight red and miss 3 games. It would'nt take too long for the message to get through.

Mike.

Pepe LeFrits

mike65 wrote:

Any 'dive/suspected dive' should be subject to a video panel. If found guilty the player should get a straight red and miss 3 games. It would'nt take too long for the message to get through.

Mike.

Yup, the perfect solution - which is exactly why the clowns at the English FA will probably wait half a decade before getting round to implementing it.

therecklessone

mike65 wrote:

Pearce got a yellow.

Any 'dive/suspected dive' should be subject to a video panel. If found guilty the player should get a straight red and miss 3 games. It would'nt take too long for the message to get through.

Mike.

Shouldn't the message be "we want honesty, whatever the circumstances"?

Another example was Tottenham's 2nd goal against Charlton yesterday, Kamara said that Luke Young should have gone down after a nudge from Aaron Lennon instead of staying on his feet and attempting to get the ball forward, the ball broke back to Lennon then eventually to Tainio for our 2nd goal.

IMO Young did the right thing, players go to ground far too easily.

MrJoeSoap

Zlatan just booked for diving in the box in the Inter game. Big "I'll get away with it next time" smile on his face.

MrJoeSoap

Another yellow card for diving in the area in the Empoli-Inter game, thats two in the first 16 minutes.

Add that to Materazzi getting away with an elbow after 25 seconds and you have the most frustrating 20 minutes of football I've ever watched in my life.

MrJoeSoap

27 minutes gone, and another yellow for 'diving'. That's three now.

I sh1t you not.

kinaldo

therecklessone wrote:

The reaction to Newcastle's Steven Taylor when he got away with his "save2 on the line a few weeks back was exactly the same from the media, laughed it off.

In fairness, everytime Taylor does that it is quite comical. This one still has me in stitches

Revelation Joe

But just because a player goes down in the box, doesn't make it a dive.
If he appeals for a penalty when it obvioulsy wasn't, *then* he should be cautioned.
But it's very easy, especially in the wet, to slip and lose your footing. Just 'cos you're a clumsy bollix, you shouldn't get booked.

PHB

****ing hilarious thing happened in the pub today during the Arsenal CHelsea match.

We all saw the aftermath of the Drogba Lehmann incident before we saw the actual incident, and the aftermath went on for like 3 mins, so when they finally got around to showing what happened, first, they saw Lehmann's push on Drogba, and when Drogba fell over, the entire pub burst into laughter, then when Drogba 'pushed' Lehmann, the entire pub burst into laughter again.

Guy:Incognito

PHB wrote:

****ing hilarious thing happened in the pub today during the Arsenal CHelsea match.

We all saw the aftermath of the Drogba Lehmann incident before we saw the actual incident, and the aftermath went on for like 3 mins, so when they finally got around to showing what happened, first, they saw Lehmann's push on Drogba, and when Drogba fell over, the entire pub burst into laughter, then when Drogba 'pushed' Lehmann, the entire pub burst into laughter again.

The only thing in Drogbas defence is that he didnt see the push coming and was jogging. It's very easy to push over a person thats running as they arnt totally balanced. Lehmann is a crazy fool tho. Ref's need to start standing up to his antics. How he gets away with stuff I'll never know.

mike65

Cantona tells it like it is, they should play this before every game

The truth about training

And of course Ronaldo

Mike.

LostinBlanch

mike65 wrote:

Pearce got a yellow.

Any 'dive/suspected dive' should be subject to a video panel. If found guilty the player should get a straight red and miss 3 games. It would'nt take too long for the message to get through.

Mike.

Mike I've been callnig for this for a couple of years, and in tournaments too not jist leagues. If someone like Drogba or a Pires lost out in the first round of a world cup / European / African Championship then that would be the end of it. Less and less people would dive. To hell with Blatter and his referee is always right crap, technology can be used to spot the things that he can't when players are doing it on his blindside.

So video panel, heavy penalties for the first few to be caught and less diving results. Sounds sensible no?

MrJoeSoap

http://www.informationbuilders.co.uk/ontheball/wcuk.htm

Some bizarre yet fascinating stats there, not least with the dives. Italy, of course, reign supreme.

Who was it that said cheaters never win?

Erin Go Brath

MrJoeSoap wrote:

http://www.informationbuilders.co.uk/ontheball/wcuk.htm

Some bizarre yet fascinating stats there, not least with the dives. Italy, of course, reign supreme.

Who was it that said cheaters never win?

No surprises Italy and Portugal are top of the list! Seems part of the culture in these countries. Dont know if anyone watched Football Focus on BBC, think it was last w.end. They got a group of ex-sports stars (not all footballers) around the table to discuss diving and how it ruins the game. They were basically questioning the players in question manhood, how can a 6 foot, well built man, roll around in agony at the merest touch? Have they no dignity? Have to say it was amusing, and I agreed with most of the comments.

Ronaldo, Drogba and co take a bow. They should be made wear a dress, and makeup when playing as punishment. They might give up being big sissies after that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

kinaldo

not sure how accurate those stats are...

All statistics are based on the opinion of our football analyst viewing televised footage.
Generated on July 10, 2006

iregk

Listening to the radio today the fa have sent in a request to fifa for their conference in March. The request is to give the FA powers of retrospectivly banning players who are shown to dive. i.e. dive and you get a yellow, if your seen diving a couple of times a match its a yello for each one so quite a few bans could happen. They want this for next season!

therecklessone

Great news if true,and if FIFA have any desire to see this wiped out they'll give it the thumbs up.

redspider

iregk wrote:

Listening to the radio today the fa have sent in a request to fifa for their conference in March. The request is to give the FA powers of retrospectivly banning players who are shown to dive. i.e. dive and you get a yellow, if your seen diving a couple of times a match its a yello for each one so quite a few bans could happen. They want this for next season!

I fully agree with the proposal and I hope it comes in, and also into the other top leagues. Its a major problem and its time it was stamped out and given a suitable deterrent.

Of course there will be some dives that can only be subjectively called, so there will be controversy.

I also think they should do it for any aspects of cheating in the sport. Handballs for example.

The rule of thumb should be that even if a player gets away with something in a match, they wont be able to get awa with it completely.

Also, in terms of punishment, it should match the benefit the player/club have gained illicitly. So for example, if a team wins a cup or league because of a blatant handball that the ref and officials missed, I would like to see the trophy rescinded. Real deterrents will stop most of the people most of the time. Its human nature.

Redspider

iregk

i'm on the fence with the whole trophy rescinded thing I have to say. I fully agree with the proposal of retrospective bannings. The request is for fifa to discuss it at the march conference and either give a yay or nae to the fa to put together a video panel to review such incidents. I really hope it comes to pass.

I can see your point though redspider. Last minute of a game a player would take the after match banning as a consequences for the greater good if it got his team a penalty that in effect won the match and indeed a cup! I'm just not sure if I want video panels to start reversing scores and results.

kinaldo

redspider wrote:

So for example, if a team wins a cup or league because of a blatant handball that the ref and officials missed, I would like to see the trophy rescinded.

Lol, let's try to keep this discussion realistic! Such actions would cause endless controversy.

therecklessone

redspider wrote:

Also, in terms of punishment, it should match the benefit the player/club have gained illicitly. So for example, if a team wins a cup or league because of a blatant handball that the ref and officials missed, I would like to see the trophy rescinded.

Where do you draw the line though?

Say team A are 1-0 up in a FA Cup final, team B are pressing hard to get an equaliser. Team A launch a counter attack, one of their players gets into the box, controls the ball with his hand and scores...

Team B are deflated, 2-0 down in a cup final...

Game end.

Would you suggest the trophy should be rescinded there? The 2nd goal takes the wind out of Team B's sails, but they were losing anyway?

I'd be reluctant to punish teams rather than players,unless there's a reord of systematic cheating by a particular side (I'm thinking Mourinho's Porto)

eirebhoy

MrJoeSoap wrote:

http://www.informationbuilders.co.uk/ontheball/wcuk.htm

Some bizarre yet fascinating stats there, not least with the dives. Italy, of course, reign supreme.

Who was it that said cheaters never win?

I watched every minute of Italy's world cup and am very suprised they top that list. There didn't seem to be much diving to me. Italy have Gattuso, Pirlo, De Rossi and Perrotta in midfield. A midfield as likely to dive as England's. Gilardino and Toni would go down quite a bit, Totti not so much as you'd think. I think Italy's reputation got the better of those that put the stats together as that Italian team wouldn't be anything like Portugal for diving and tantrums.

La Liga would be worse than Serie A. At least the Italians are now booking players for the slightest glimpse of a dive.

PHB

That list is a joke, it has England down as only bullying the ref twice, when every single foul happened Lampard and Terry were over there in a second.

iregk

Ever watch Gary Neville phb? Worst in the league for his moaning...

Zebra3

What about the scourge of defenders pulling attackers' shirts at set-pieces?

Why is there all this focus on diving? Imo it's the xenophobic British media complaining about a 'foreign' disease.

therecklessone

Zebra3 wrote:

Why is there all this focus on diving?

Thats sort of my point, the thread title doesn't convey it but I'd hope people would read the posts as well.

Too many critics target diving as a heinous crime, yet laugh at other infringments on the pitch, as if they have no impact.

We either want honesty throughout the game or not at all, there's no half/half solution IMO.

PHB

Ever watch Gary Neville phb? Worst in the league for his moaning...

Indeed he is, as is Gerrard, which is exactly why that table is utter bull****. The English top teams go after refs like nobody else, as does the English team.

iregk

PHB wrote:

Indeed he is, as is Gerrard, which is exactly why that table is utter bull****. The English top teams go after refs like nobody else, as does the English team.

Agree 100%