One things I won’t miss about this World Cup is how many players I have seen fall to the ground. Just because you get touched does NOT mean you have to fall to the ground. But I guess it does when free kicks and luring the referee into awarding a yellow card to your opposition are deemed so critical to success.
And that is pitiful. I just watched Argentina beat Belgium 1-0 and there had to be 50 times at least when players fell to the ground and upon replay could have kept their feet. Will it change? Of course not, because FIFA has failed us fans in curtailing “Simulation” and “Embelishment.”
Players used to police some of this themselves with hard men like Roy Keane, Dunga and Vinnie Jones meating out extra-punishment for players “over-doing it.” But those guys are gone from the game now and all the fakers, cheaters and sissies have taken over. It’s ruins football. It is awful to watch. Why referees keep buying it is beyond me.
But it keeps happening at an alarming rate. In American football you almost have to be decapitated for the stretcher to be brought out onto the field. In soccer a player might have his own eyelash poke him and we have a stretcher, six EMTs, a helicopter and George Clooney from ER running onto the pitch. Miraculously, all the player needed was a drink of water and then they are good to go!
It makes a mockery of the game. Put a timeout halfway thru each half for water, tactical adjustments and tv commercials (your advertisers will love you) and warn players that faking injury will be reviewed and met with strict suspensions…and then DO IT!
FIFA needs to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk. Cheaters, divers, fakers and biters have no place in the beautiful game. But if you ask me, they have sadly taken over.
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