To be fair to Sr. Torres, it seems likely that he didn’t realize at first that it was his own leg that struck him, which is why he went into full “shot by a sniper” mode. And the argument that he couldn’t have dived as he was still involved in the play is extremely unconvincing. He didn’t know that there would be a goal scored; all he knew is that his legs were struck from behind on the very edge of the box. It was a perfect free-kick opportunity that they didn’t end up needing because they scored first.
Torres should be embarrassed, but Estrada was on very thin ice as it was, having barely avoided a second yellow a few minutes earlier. If FIFA isn’t going to bother policing this, I hope at least that the referees of the future matches are taking notes.
I’m sorry to see Italy out, as now I have no one to root for. I’ve supported Italy since 1970, except for (temporarily) in 2006 when I cheered for Trinidad and Tobago.
I won’t be a bit surprised to see Argentina and Brazil meet in the finals.
I’ll add that I wouldn’t mind at all if there was a second group round now, leading directly to the semi-finals.
I have to give that prize to the Ivory Coast player, clutching his face and rolling around in agony after bumping lightly into Kaka’s elbow with his chest.
It is interesting to see how very much more often teams such as Italy or Argentina or >>>Portugal<<< seem to twist their ankles in this World Cup when compared to certain other teams. For example, the USMNT, you don’t seem to see them writhe quite as often before popping back up good as new. Maybe we just have strong ankles.
While they’re not as bad as Italy, I don’t think the U.S. is exactly a paragon of virtue here either. Altidore in particular has struck me as being extremely easy to take down near the box.
Also, part of the problem is that a lot of these countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy) have massive amounts of possession (especially against lower-ranked opponents who are hunkered down) which means they’ll be fouled that much more often. It doesn’t justify flopping around on the ground like a seal, but a team that’s holding the ball and passing incessantly for 66% of the game is going to get fouled. A lot.
Improving the quality of referees is a nice idea but hard to achieve in reality. Look at it this way, who would want to be a referee? In order to get your licence you need to officiate at some huge number of matches in your own free time whilst getting verbally abused by players and fans in Sunday league matches. Aside from this you need to attend courses and pass tests to advance past the ‘park referee’ level (where you have to stay for at least 1 year). Then if you are ‘lucky’ enough after years (probably over a decade) of refereeing to officiate on the big stage you can look forward to having every one of your decisions scrutinised by people watching replays from 10 cameras in slow motion and the first time you get a major call wrong people call for you to be sacked from the job, oh, and don’t forget the death threats on your family.
So, where do I sign? It sounds like a hoot!!
NB: Not having a go at you here Airman, I am just of the opinion that referees are basically as good as they are going to get, to err is human and all that. The only way to improve officiating as a whole is to let technology help e.g. video replays like in rugby or electronic chips in player’s boots that would take offside calls away from the referee and his assistants. These kinds of ideas have been debated ad nauseum for as long as I can remember and we still don’t seem any closer to implementing them.
Yes, possession-oriented teams will be fouled more, high pressure and counter-attacking teams will foul more, while pretty much all players are struck by lightning near the opponent’s box. And that every player will do his [del]best[/del] worst to get an already cautioned opponent sent off, is perfectly understandable. It’s the cautioned player’s resonsibility do prevent situations that can easily put him away, the coach’s to take him off if the player doesn’t adapt and the referee’s to not fall for any attempts by the other team to exploit his power and discipline them for trying.
I’ve seen so many players being booked after some Oscar-worthy act by Kaka that I couldn’t shed a single tear over him; besides, he did raise his elbow to greet the Ivorian. So, you can very well argue that he was fouling him. Yet, I still wanted the Ivorian to be disciplined too afterwards; the FIFA had to review the situation anyway and his act was apparent and worthy of some fine at least.
But I was more surprised that Fabiano had escaped any consequences of his lie to not have played the ball with his hand prior to his goal. Either the referee had worded the exchange in a way that allowed FIFA some leeway or the organization has once again proven to be inconsistent in its rulings.
Imo, Torres was play-acting (even if they touched each other slightly) and at first I thought the referee had cautioned him for diving. But Estrada had already been lucky before, when he had earned a second yellow card – he was so much on probation that even smelly breath could have been considered a bookable offence.
It’s already been covered, but this reply has been bugging me since I read it yesterday. It’s clearly wrong, and reeks of soccer-apologist denial.
The proper refutation of VarlosZ’s complaint has been supplied by others: Altidore is as bad as anyone, and the NBA is a flopfest. (I personally am disgusted by Altidore, and I think the flopping contributes to why the NBA isn’t particularly popular in the US.)
This doesn’t invalidate VarlosZ’s point, of course; it’s possible for an Italian citizen to be disguested by flops even though their team has the floppiest floppers in floptown.
But to downplay the flopping by claiming there really isn’t that much of it is laughable.
And we are back to the question how large your sample size actually is? And how much dives you have observed in the matches you have watched? Some definite numbers instead of general allegations would be nice.
Diving is rarely a deciding factor in the outcome of a game and it is being punished – far too seldom by the responsible organizations but at least to some degree by public ridicule. Reputation is important; it determines not just the public’s opinion of a player but also the referees’ perception of your actions on the field.
But if you ask me if diving players should be disciplined consistently with a suspension of a game or two, I’ll answer with a yes. As soon as the teams suffer by their actions, diving will get far more costly and not worth it most of the time.
A question out of interest: the advantage of some acting is apparent in football and basketball; but what about American football?
Punters flop like soccer players, but punters (and kickers) aren’t viewed as actual football players. They get about as much respect as the towel boys.
Then again, knocking someone on their ass whether they have the ball or not is allowed in American football, so I’m not sure what flopping would accomplish. Is there flopping in rugby?
It only takes one or two obvious flops per game for there to be way too much of it.
After thinking about it for a bit, I can come up with several examples where an actual football player (as opposed to punters and kickers) could flop for benefit. A wide receiver could flop to draw a pass interference penalty, and a pass rusher could flop to draw a holding penalty. Both penalties are severe.
I can’t think of any examples of this type of flopping, though I wouldn’t be stunned to find out a wide receiver flopped at the end of a game on a hail mary or something. But generally speaking, there is very little “down time” in American football where a player has the free time to lay on the ground pretending he got penalized. The coach would likely tear him a new asshole for a stunt like that since it would mean they were effectively playing 11 vs 10. You can’t play 11 vs 10 in American football or you’ll get annihilated; everything everyone does is too critically important to the play.
Besides which, no self-respecting football player would want to do something so unmanly. Leave that stuff for the girly-men punters and kickers. (Kickers flop on FG attempts.)
So, Ellis Dee, if I understand you correctly: Even in situations where flopping might occur, the net result is still negative? In this case, it’s perfectly understandable why American football players don’t do it. It has nothing to do per se with “manliness” or sportsmanship but with calculation.
Then we have to agree to disagree. Players will try this approach as long as the advantage surpasses the most likely downsides. When the referee acts decisively to inhibit such behaviour by cautioning the culprit, the problem is usually contained.
Take a look at Australia vs. Germany. Young Özil tried a stupid dive and received instantly a yellow card (one of the referee’s very few correct decisions); the player didn’t try anything like it again, neither in this game nor the following ones – the caution accomplished its goal.
Cacau was also cautioned for a dive but this one was a .. questionable decision: he was jumping in the air to avoid the onrushing legs of an Australian players. Whether he lost his balance and fell or tried to act as if he was fouled, is not clear, though I’d rather vote for the first option because he didn’t show any theatrics immediately afterwards that would have indicated an act.
Still, you ended up with two cautions for dives and yet, I don’t think that it turned the game into an unfair one. If you consider the number of fouls and their nature, it was one of the fairest during the group stage, despite the number of cards alloted.
But when a dive changes the outcome of a game or unjustly punishes a player, one dive is already one too many.
In this case, it’s the responsibility of the organizations involved to act harshly against the diver and against the team as well if the club gained a calculable advantage.
You have no basis to claim that it has nothing to do with “manliness.”
Unless you’re arguing that diving is a good aspect of soccer, what do we have to agree to disagree about? I’m in full agreement with much of the rest of your post. The one point where I disagree is the idea that diving is only bad if it directly affects the outcome of the game. IMO, diving is bad in its own right. Fake=bad.
On an unrelated note, I am beyond psyched for today’s USA-Ghana match. I was so pumped I had trouble sleeping last night, and had multiple fitful dreams where I missed the game. First dream had the game on in the middle of the night and I awoke to find out my DVR screwed up and missed it. I was pissed! Then second dream I was in a hotel room frantically calling down to try and swing late checkout so I could stay long enough to watch the game. There are apparently no sports bars in my dreams. heh.
It’s not flopping per se, but many wide receivers and some quarterbacks (coughpeytonmanning*cough) petition for a pass-interference flag each and every time a pass is successfully defended. Not exactly the same thing, but closely related and with similar detriment to the game.
In the NBA, flopping is practically required in order to draw a charge call. Players are trained on exactly how to fall backwards and land softly without getting hurt. Additionally, players constantly complaining about getting fouled is analogous to flopping, imho. Kobe Bryant should be just as embarrassed as Torres for the dozen or so times a game that he pretends to have been fouled (which helps yield more actual fouls called on his defenders). What these guys seem to forget is that everyone has HDTV now. We see everything.