Mindhunter
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- Jul 26, 2013
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Since we are discussing about this in the Herrera thread, I thought maybe a separate thread will be easier.I said previously, but yes that is probably the definition of a dive by the letter of the law, however in practice it can be expanded.
If an attacker deliberately makes contact with a defender, for the pure aim of drawing a foul/penalty, then is that fair play?
If an attacker goes down very easily from minimal contact when they could easily have stayed on their feet, is that fair play?
It doesnt matter whether you call it a dive or something else, for me the answer to both questions is "no" and both should be punishable by a yellow card.
In the Herrera incident, freeze frames do not show what happened. In realtime, and when watching the replays, it was obvious that Herrera left his trailing foot dangling and stuck it out a bit in order to make contact with Cahill - and as soon as he felt the contact he threw himself to the ground in quite an unnatural fashion. It wasnt a foul, it wasnt a penalty, Herrera deserved to be booked - just accept it and move on.
Here is the question -
Did Herrara dive? If no, then was it a foul/penalty? There is the third and most unlikely option that Herrera didn't mean to do it and neither was it a foul.
Here is my two pence -
If you have seen the match and the replay, it was clear as ice that Herrera engineered the contact deliberately when he could have easily avoided it and got booked for it. It is understandable though since Chelsea were playing very compact and narrow and we rarely had any chances in spite of 70% possession. I hope he doesn't make a habit out of it. It is extremely difficult to respect such professionals to cheat on the field.