Going to Ground, Going to Hell

Pogue Mahone

Drawing a foul, without necessarily doing anything constructive with the ball, is part of the game. It happens in every area of the pitch but only provokes condemnation when it happens in the box.

B Cantona

Well because if you're not touched, you could draw pretty pictures of the surrounding lanscape, it's not a foul. You're not cheating if you've been fouled, it's up to the defender to practice his art fairly. Part of the attackers armoury has to be to protect themselves, and level the playing field, because there's no doubt defenders can at times get away with murder

Personally I think there's a chasm of different between drawing a foul, and actually faking a foul. Namely, only one of them is actually a foul!

Scholesy

One of the differences I like between Valencia and Ronaldo, is that Valencia always stays on his feet if he can, and has excellent strength. Ronaldo would go down after most challenges.

Obviously I miss Ronaldos crazy free kicks, and goals.

surf

Absolutely. Goals provide entertainment and a few "marginal" penalties will never make up for all the goals prevented by Carragher-type fouls. I don't care that Dean was giving them all day long yesterday since he seemed to be even-handed about it and all 3 penalties looked correct to me.

Plechazunga

Well that's exactly the point I'm making.

Rooney maybe, but who was it last year, Kranjcar maybe, who went through on goal and then fell over when the defender touched his shoulder? That was pathetic, but the principle is the same.

This is exactly what I'm getting at in the blog. Yes defenders cheat too, and yes that's sometimes what influences strikers to cheat. But neither is worse than the other (except where defenders risk injuring strikers with their fouls). They're both wrong.

The problem with 'making it clear to the ref' is that it's not a player's job to decide what's a foul. He's totally biased, and often doesn't have a good angle, and is often wrong. He should try to score and if he's stopped, leave it to the ref to decide what stopped him.

Of course you can't stop players doing it, but the reason they do it so much - as IMO is clear from that Rooney interview - is that cnuts like you legitimise it to the extent that he doesn't even realise it's wrong!

I agree that 'drawing a foul' is less pernicious, but it's still not right. A footballer should be trying to create a goal directly, not trying to induce infringements in order to get set-pieces. To me 'that's not football' either.

I'd say the hierarchy of wrongness goes something like this:

1. Pretending to have been headbutted etc. to get someone sent off
1. Diving and faking injury
2. Diving
3. 'Making the most of a foul' / 'Going down easy'*
4. Drawing / playing for a foul

*like your mum

MikeUpNorth

Surely those last two are in the wrong order? It must be worse to be simply playing with the intention of being fouled, compared with making the most of a foul that happens to occur whilst you are trying to play properly?

Alex

Maybe No3 should be making the most of contact instead making the most of a foul

B Cantona

I see it as this. If a defending team can't practise their art properly, and are going in rashly, that's poor football and it's their own fault if it costs them. So if a player takes a step back to draw a lunge from a willing accomplice, or holds onto the ball a second longer to see if they get scythed down... it's drawing a foul, but the poor play is on the part of the defending team, and the attacking team is productively exposing that

That doesn't compare to diving when there's been no foul or the like

Plechazunga

Or maybe better to rephrase it as Alex suggests:

The point being, as I keep banging on about, that the act of going down makes it very hard to ever know if it was a foul or not. Whereas when you draw the foul, it is at least clear you've been fouled.

I see what you're saying. I still think the two blame issues are distinct. Both actions are blameworthy: the defender, either technically for poor tackling or morally for a deliberate foul; and the attacker, morally, for cynically playing for set-pieces rather than directly trying to score.