It should count as a dive more often than not. Specifically if you are on your feet and can keep running, but you fall down. Jota being prime example. A slight contact wont make you fall or trip, and since it is a sport with contact, slight contact is a given. Unless the contact makes you fall or takes away your balance heavily, i think it should be counted as a dive if you fall. Jota being a prime example. A slight contact is rarely a foul.
If there is slight contact but you massively exaggerate it, should it count as a dive?
- Thread starter sullydnl
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pundits have been pushing this idea of "well there is some contact, so he's entitled to go down" and "it's been clever", so here we are
This idea that at speed balance is easily lost due to a slight touch and leads to a player hitting the deck involuntarily is utter hogwash. Have a look at George Best or Diego Maradona dribbling past opponents. They were of course hugely under-protected, but the sight of them riding tackles is scintillating.
Football was supposed to be a physical game, I'm not sure what it is now. Certain clubs have absolutely mastered the art of what is essentially cheating.
On a tangent, I remember having Sky Sports in the late 2000's/early 2010's, and I wanted badly to enjoy watching La Liga but every time I watched the Classico, it just devolved almost instantly into grown men throwing themselves to the floor, time wasting, diving, and subtle kicks on the chance of a counter to break up the flow of a game. It was unwatchable shit, and I've not seen a La Liga game ever since. Now this has absolutely been in England for a long while now but it's getting to Classico-levels of pathetic.
Somehow it reminds me of the Prisoner's Dilemma, whereby in an otherwise fair society, cheaters win vs people playing fair every time. In a fair society you assume everyones playing the same rules as you are, but if they're not, you just have to start cheating yourself or you just look like an idiot. It's a horrendous state for a society (or a game) to be in though: anyone fair minded just stops playing along entirely.
On a tangent, I remember having Sky Sports in the late 2000's/early 2010's, and I wanted badly to enjoy watching La Liga but every time I watched the Classico, it just devolved almost instantly into grown men throwing themselves to the floor, time wasting, diving, and subtle kicks on the chance of a counter to break up the flow of a game. It was unwatchable shit, and I've not seen a La Liga game ever since. Now this has absolutely been in England for a long while now but it's getting to Classico-levels of pathetic.
Somehow it reminds me of the Prisoner's Dilemma, whereby in an otherwise fair society, cheaters win vs people playing fair every time. In a fair society you assume everyones playing the same rules as you are, but if they're not, you just have to start cheating yourself or you just look like an idiot. It's a horrendous state for a society (or a game) to be in though: anyone fair minded just stops playing along entirely.
Slight contact isn't a foul. Diving/play acting should be a red card offence.
It's an absolutely blight on the game that allows the dishonest to prosper.
Football is a contact sport some contact is inevitable but not all contact is a foul.
Think they need to re-write the rules to say a foul is when a player is impeded with significant contact, if a player clearly throws themselves to the floor which Is quite clear in an awful lot of examples the should be red-carded with a 3 game ban like violent conduct.
Diving would soon stop. But there also needs to be an acceptance the a player can be fouled with significant contact without actually ending up on the floor also. As that is the main reason that players throw themselves to the floor.
It's an absolutely blight on the game that allows the dishonest to prosper.
Football is a contact sport some contact is inevitable but not all contact is a foul.
Think they need to re-write the rules to say a foul is when a player is impeded with significant contact, if a player clearly throws themselves to the floor which Is quite clear in an awful lot of examples the should be red-carded with a 3 game ban like violent conduct.
Diving would soon stop. But there also needs to be an acceptance the a player can be fouled with significant contact without actually ending up on the floor also. As that is the main reason that players throw themselves to the floor.
Sadly for the game, whilst I think the Jota penalty is clearly a dive, you kind of need to make this rule binary (contact or no contact) to enforce it in the most accurate way.
Unless you start retraining kids how to play and punish diving very aggressively from a young age, this is where the game is at. As a side note, one of the big reasons the PL became so popular was because it was a lot more physical and allowed a lot more in the way of contact (I see a poster above talking about the issues of watching La Liga and all the diving, stopped play, going down under any contact and i completely agree).
Unless you start retraining kids how to play and punish diving very aggressively from a young age, this is where the game is at. As a side note, one of the big reasons the PL became so popular was because it was a lot more physical and allowed a lot more in the way of contact (I see a poster above talking about the issues of watching La Liga and all the diving, stopped play, going down under any contact and i completely agree).
Yeah, it’s nonsense. It is possible to get tripped up by very slight contact but that only happens when the foot that is clipped ends up hitting the other leg. Like a tap tackle in rugby. Otherwise an elite athlete can easily ride the sort of contact we saw on Jota and Diaz. These guys have phenomenal balance. There’s no chance they can’t help but go down like a sack of shit just because one foot is lightly clipped.
Our Whatsapp group blew up about this yesterday so I've just watched it back. If you run it through a freeze frame, you can actually see the moment he chooses to throw himself upwards in the air after realising the ball is getting away from him.
It's telling because in the immediate moment before it he adjusts his leg back flat to land the run so he clearly wasn't put off by the challenge (it's the left leg that was clipped, not the right one as it may suggest in the pics below).
I'll be fair to refs and say they have a hard job deciding in the moment. The only way to stamp this out is retrospective bans for players deemed to be overexaggerating contact, which should be easy enough if they stop being babies about it all.
The initial contact/brush on his leg boot
Moment after when he adjusts his leg leg back to land using a pretty normal body shape as he chases the ball
The next moment when instead of planting his leg boot, he pushes the heel upwards to allow himself to change his body position and go down. If he's off balance then it should be his right boot that lands awkwardly but it doesn't land at all.
Newcastle had a similar one last week against Forest where Isak felt slight contact on his left boot so through his body rightwards to exaggerate contact and won the pen.
It's a joke for obvious reasons but we've also benefited from them greatly over the years. Every penalty Martial has ever won for example
It's telling because in the immediate moment before it he adjusts his leg back flat to land the run so he clearly wasn't put off by the challenge (it's the left leg that was clipped, not the right one as it may suggest in the pics below).
I'll be fair to refs and say they have a hard job deciding in the moment. The only way to stamp this out is retrospective bans for players deemed to be overexaggerating contact, which should be easy enough if they stop being babies about it all.
The initial contact/brush on his leg boot
Moment after when he adjusts his leg leg back to land using a pretty normal body shape as he chases the ball
The next moment when instead of planting his leg boot, he pushes the heel upwards to allow himself to change his body position and go down. If he's off balance then it should be his right boot that lands awkwardly but it doesn't land at all.
Newcastle had a similar one last week against Forest where Isak felt slight contact on his left boot so through his body rightwards to exaggerate contact and won the pen.
It's a joke for obvious reasons but we've also benefited from them greatly over the years. Every penalty Martial has ever won for example
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I would also argue he was looking to leave his right leg trailing so that Dubravka could catch it but as that didn't happen he chose to down on his left. The guy must have had this planned out weeks in advance. Smart work Diogo.