merse
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Post by merse on Jun 16, 2010 8:38:58 GMT
 Cristiano Ronaldo's having a laugh isn't he? The diving diva reckon's "star" players should be getting more protection from the referees at this World Cup. Just twenty minutes into his opening game and Ronaldo (not the real one) had tricked the referee into booking one opponent and then received a caution himself for "fabrication", so enraged was his Ivorian opponent at being set up as an Aunt Sally, that he too then got a yellow anyway for threatening the whingeing Portuguese. What are the opinions of others on this reprehensible part of the game? What chance do the refs have of "protecting" the so called stars anyway when those "stars" won't play the game in a fair and honourable manner? Somehow to see Ronaldo (again, not the real one) depart this World Cup with a broken leg might not be so far fetched when you take into the account the very real anger and disgust he must be stirring up inside opponents who stand to miss vital games as a result of his very own cheating.
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Post by geddingtongull on Jun 16, 2010 9:10:31 GMT
Totally agree with you on this subject.
I was so angry when he dived and got the Ivory Coast player booked I switched the game off and went and cut my next door neighbours grass, they are actually unable to do it themselves due to age and disabilities.
The sooner the game is rid of players like him the better.
When people ask me why I prefer watching lower league and non league football this is the reason.
With you on this one
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Pappy
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Post by Pappy on Jun 16, 2010 10:30:39 GMT
I do have a real dislike and hatred for cheats and the Ronaldo (Donkey face) is top of my hated list for cheats. I don`t see what diving achieves in the long game apart from losing support from everyone else, friends and turns a good game into a brawl between the two teams.
I am glad he is out of England; it`s just a shame that the nearly all top flight premiership players have this in thier brain that cheating and diving is acceptable, IT`S NOT.
Back to your question Merse, all players should recieve the same amount of protection as each other. Why give more to one player and less to another, that will give an unfair advantage on one team when it should be about footballing ability. I`m with you on this one and am glad I support Torquay United and no one else.
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Post by loyalgull on Jun 16, 2010 11:58:47 GMT
the world cup is the one place where all the nations diving cheats can be seen on block,this unsavoury part of the game is almost accepted as part of coaching now,the sooner the red cards get dished out and attempts to really stop it happening,the better
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 16, 2010 12:29:00 GMT
.................. all players should recieve the same amount of protection as each other. Why give more to one player and less to another, that will give an unfair advantage on one team when it should be about footballing ability. Absolutely agree with you Chris, it's like the boy who cried "wolf" isn't it; serves him bloody right if a genuine foul on him goes unpunished because of the doubts about his integrity and the difficulty he is causing the referee's to make a correct decision......................and do you know what? I think he is so precocious and so self focussed he really doesn't think he is cheating. Pathetic!  |
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Rags
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Post by Rags on Jun 16, 2010 15:36:40 GMT
I think its a complicated situation that has been allowed to get out of control over a period of time and now needs all parties to join together to bring it back under control.
If you consider that we are talking about young men who have more money than they could ever have dreamed of, more attention, material wealth, "distractions" and excessive spare time. When I was at school, the best footballers were usually not academically-gifted (with the exception of Morris Cox) and this generalisation still holds true; where footballers are seen and considered to be cerebrally challenged. Add to that their managers and coaches ordering them to do anything they can to gain an advantage and you have a problem with egos running unchecked simply because most footballers don't understand how to deal with the adulation and believe they are super-human and "untouchable".
Anyone who has played competitive football at any level (or should I say who has been fouled at any level) knows that it is a bit of a surprise for the brain to suddenly realise the body is falling towards the ground when it was sorting out what to do with the feet and the ball. It is almost impossible to knowingly throw yourself to the ground without the brain automatically putting up some sort of defence mechanism. If the brain's not expecting a fall, then it takes a split second before any reaction happens and then it is last-resort, damage-limitation protection. Maybe television companies need to employ consultants with a degree in physics or physiology to explain more, but any footballer who goes down with both legs straight out together like a ski-jumper is diving, any footballer who is turning towards the referee to claim a foul as they hit the ground is diving, any footballer who immediately throws their arms out for protection is diving and any footballer who falls in the opposite direction of the challenge (ie towards the "fouler") is diving.
Sometimes players go down because an opponent has clipped one foot which then knocks into the other foot and trips them up. "Dive" shout the commentators, but it needn't necessarily be so: if they tumble down, limbs akimbo, then it is highly likely an honest fall. So it is not too difficult to spot a dive from a genuine fall.
But we still have a situation where diving is mis-called by the most powerful people in football - television commentators; and in this country that usually means Sky TV. If Andy Gray says it was a dive, more than likely all the papers will repeat the charge the following day. If Andy Gray says it was a foul, the papers will quote him as evidence it wasn't a dive. This was true of the Ronaldo dive against Cote d'Ivoire: called as a foul after the fourth replay by whichever ITV commentator it was (Guy Mowbray?) but Ronaldo was clearly turning to claim the foul as his fall was being broken by the grass - a dive.
But if the FA, Premier League and FIFA would allow retrospective bookings for clear diving (and you do need to be very careful that it is genuinely a dive) then you stand more of a chance of ridding the game of this pest.
The same goes for shirt-pulling and here the media amaze me with their ignorance and the authorities amaze me with their complacency. Shirt-pulling can often be difficult for the referee to spot during the game, especially at corners when the ref has so many things to keep an eye out for that its no surprise that he misses a lot of it, but shows up clearly on TV. I remember Leon Barnett (I think) giving away a penalty for shirt-pulling while playing for WBA in the Premier League and Alan Shearer being incredulous at the award of the penalty. When "Sir Gary" gently pointed out that the Laws of the Game gave shirt-pulling as a direct free-kick offence, Shearer genuinely gave the "fact" that refs usually didn't give a penalty as evidence to support his view that the penalty was wrongly awarded.
But why can't the FA award a retrospective yellow card for any player caught shirt-pulling? If they made it clear that it was a yellow card punishment only and would have no effect on the result (so Sir Alex can't blame a missed shirt-pull for a defeat) but that players could receive multiple yellow cards per match then I don't think it would take long for the offence to be eradicated. Yes, we might find Harry Redknapp moaning because five of his defenders were banned for a particular game due to retrospective yellow cards but if the FA managed the situation correctly then the public/fans would clearly understand, and accept, why their team was weakened and, in turn, who was to blame. Given the television coverage of all four divisions, there shouldn't be any reason (apart from camera failure or footage mysteriously going missing) why such recourse couldn't be applied across the Football League.
But without such control, and with media commentators insisting that diving and shirt-pulling is "part-and-parcel" of the game, they are allowing such cheating to go unpunished, unchecked and encouraged by managers and coaches.
Invariably, it is the media that promotes cheating by its acceptance of it within the game (unless a foreign club benefits). If Sky named the divers and shirt-pullers as cheats and ran a table of the most cheats, and publicly called for the FA/Premier League to take action, something might happen. But while Gray, Alan Hansen et al benefit by not rocking the boat and criticising their fellow footballers, players will continue to think they are above any law and continue to try to gain any advantage during a game.
Maradona is known to the English as a cheat for his handled goal in the 86 World Cup, but in Argentina (and other countries) that act is praised for being "cheeky". It's becoming more and more the case in this country that diving or shirt-pulling is considered acceptable rather than cheating and steps need to be taken by the authorities (FIFA/FA/Premier League) to stop it.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 16, 2010 17:15:55 GMT
It must be very frustrating for any really talented player to keep being fouled to stop him having any impact on the game, but those same talented players so often go and foul a player who has just won the ball off him fairly after they expected to just beat the player with ease.
No player should ever receive any special protection out on the pitch, the game is played under a clear set of rules and the real problem is its down to the ref when and if he takes any action against a player who has broken the rules of the game.
I’m sure I have read stories of the FA being harder on some clubs than others but that is not the case say in the South Devon League. If a club breaks a rule it gets punished and I know in the past there has been some criticism from club managers towards those who run the SDL, but the facts were still the same and so were the punishments. A manager may claim it was a simple mistake and the club were not trying to cheat in anyway, maybe that really was the case but how would say Ant know that for sure. He would not and the fairest way for all the other clubs who make up a league is to punish every single club that break a rule.
So off the pitch the message is loud and very clear, break the rules and you will get a punished but when the game then moves onto the pitch the way the rules are applied lack any real consistency and are open to abuse by players and even the managers of a team. How many times have we seen a TUFC player fouled by the same player four times before he got a yellow card and then our player commit one foul and get a yellow card for it?
Players get blamed and labelled a cheat and as Merse rightly says they know full well what they are doing, but is it all really their fault? How many managers tell their players if they feel hands on them in the box they must fall to the ground. How many managers tell their players to take a player out if he can’t stop him going past him? How many managers tell their players to do all they can to wind up a player who is known to have short fuse in the hope of getting him sent off.
There will be some who will claim this is just gamesmanship and part and parcel of the modern game and is not cheating at all. I don’t agree and the problem with football today is the fact that not getting the required result so often will come with a very high price to pay and so winning the game by any means at all becomes the priority.
The manager’s job may be on the line, the club could end up relegated, or fans start staying away if a team was on a bad losing streak and so tactics will be brought into the game that will go against the very sprit of honest competitive sportsmanship, just to try and get that win.
If a player dives in the box to try and win a penalty we will be called a cheat, if a defender takes out a forward who would have been clean through on goal, he is seen as a hero and it was just something he had to do and the yellow card he got afterwards he was happy to take for the team.
It’s still cheating surely? The very fact he ended up getting a yellow card means he did not play the game within the rules and he also like the player who dives in the box, fully knows the rules and knows he is breaking them when he brings the forward down.
If it’s alright for fans to say the defender was just doing a job for the team then so is the player who dives in the box, both are equally guilty and the only difference is one broke the rules to cheat and the other just cheated full stop.
As rags said things like shirt pulling are now a part of the game and almost accepted as a part of it and why is that? Half the problem is football is a spectator sport and therefore everyone wants the games to end up with still 22 players out on the pitch. How many times have we heard it said a game was ruined because a player was sent off? Yes I have seen game ruined because a player got sent off but players know they stand a good chance of getting away with a fair bit of rule breaking during the game before they were ever likely to see a red card.
The manager and the players will know if the ref is one to keep his cards in his pocket or if he likes to flash the cards maybe far to many times and if the ref was a card happy ref you can bet the manager will drill it in his players to watch the fouls as he won’t want to see his team reduced to ten men.
That surly can never be right can it? a game that has rules that can be stretched or broken and just how far you can get away with breaking the rules comes down to the sort of ref you get on the day. It makes you wonder if there is really any need to have rules at all.
The solution is a simple one and one that would not be hard to implement at all as each game has a forth official and he can play a part in it as well. Each player gets away with breaking the rules twice only and on the third time receives a yellow card, no ifs and buts and no exceptions and after that if the player breaks the rules two more times he gets a second yellow and is sent off.
Hard you may feel but the game has rules and really should be played within those rules and the only way to get the game cleaned up and let the game be played with a bit more sportsmanship than it is now, is to clamp down hard and the players will soon get the message and so will their managers.
I have taken some flack before for my views on winning games fairly and because on the day you were the better team or the team that got that bit of luck that so often can win the game. Any victory achieved by cheating is only a very hollow victory in my book and worth nothing, only as I said earlier due to what is always at stake its seems for so many it does not matter at all.
I want the teams I support to win because they deserved to win and not because they cheated and I would only want to be able to say we won promotion because we were the best team in the league, I would rather my team stayed down if I had to say my team won promotion because it cheated and broke all the rules it could just so it could win.
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 16, 2010 17:42:42 GMT
A very long and comprehensive post Dave, but somewhat drifting away from the point I was presenting and that was the point of tricking the referee into penalising and possibly causing an opponent into a false sending off and missing subsequent matches. No-one in their right mind is expecting competitive young men to play like Victorian Corinthians.....................it just doesn't and won't happen; and there is a referee and team of officials to identify and rule on infringements. Cristiano Ronaldo is the very epitomy of the modern day "brat player" who behaves like an over indulged child and is now proposing that he and others like him be further over indulged. I also suspect as I alluded to earlier, that he doesn't even think there is anything wrong in just going to ground to draw the free kick and certainly nothing wrong in mimicking a card being shown in an attempt to influece the referee into taking retribution.
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Post by lambethgull on Jun 16, 2010 18:05:04 GMT
Ignoring the specific issue of 'simulation', and at the risk of stirring up a hornets nest, I'm going to say that I don't feel quite as strongly about the issue of cheating as everyone else. I would even go as far as to say that whilst I don't approve of cheating, a small part of me admires the chutzpah of the cheat.
Someone brought up the issue of Maradonna's 'hand of God' goal earlier and how the act is viewed differently in other countries. The implication seemed to me to be that English fans abhor this act because they have a more advanced sense of fair play than fans in other countries. I'm going to take issue with this and suggest that the reason it rankles is that we were on the wrong end of it. Our own Gary Lineaker couldn't have executed such a sublime piece of subterfuge even if he'd wanted to, but if anyone can sit there and claim that they would be as indignant now if Lineaker had won that game with a more prosaic piece of skullduggery, then I believe that person to be either a liar or a saint.
Of course no-one enjoys seeing players like Ronaldo try to gain advantage by falling to the ground in every game he plays, or when he tries to get players booked or sent off. But the sanctimony of some fans - particuarly some English fans on this matter - is really pretty unbecoming as far as I'm concerned.
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chelstongull
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Post by chelstongull on Jun 16, 2010 18:18:18 GMT
Someone brought up the issue of Maradonna's 'hand of God' goal earlier and how the act is viewed differently in other countries. I must be very naive, as open and blatant cheating by Maradonna and the cheating from AKA Henry would seem to go unpunished and is very quickly swept under the carpet. Me, I would have banned Henry from the World Cup and as for the cocaine snorting Argy would have dished out an equal punishment. That ref that mentioned about Rooney swearing at him and he could get him sent off in the proper matches should have sent him off. I guess where do you start and stop. Do we have panels of refs watching TV all week-end watching for the unpunished shirt pulls etc? Respect my arse!! |
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Post by jmgull on Jun 16, 2010 18:58:00 GMT
A broken leg......would do for Ronaldo, that's from someone whose own modest local league career was curtailed early by one.
His diving and cheating was sickening to watch week in, week out, however nothing can top the way he helped get Rooney sent off in the last World Cup.....
....you just dont do that to a "team mate".
Over-rated scumbag....
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jun 16, 2010 19:07:56 GMT
Merse for me the biggest shame is that such a talented payer like Cristiano Ronaldo acts the way he does out on the pitch as when he is at his best he is a joy to watch, a real crowd pleaser and I feel Manchester United were a weaker team without his services last season.
We know its wrong and not in the sprite of the game to try and con the ref and it’s a whole lot worse if a player got send of as a result of it. But he not alone his he? There are so many players always looking to con the ref watch any game and you see players falling to the floor in the box trying to con the ref into giving a penalty.
How many players rush up to the ref pretending they are holding a card in their hand to try and influence the ref into issuing a card to another player? Far too many and they would all soon stop if each ref showed every player doing that the yellow card.
If a player dives give him a straight red card, the message will get to every player soon enough that if they try to cheat in this way then they will be taking no further part in the game.
My other post was trying to make the point that the rules are not enforced correctly or consistently enough and that is a very big part of the problem, if they were then we would not have players getting up to such antics and then they might just concentrate more on their own game.
There is always another question that could be asked and that is what was he taught in the very early years when he first started playing football. It does sound when you talk about how Anthony is taught that he is getting the very best training and all the right values and virtues being put in place that will serve him well and would make the chance of him behaving in such a way an almost impossibility.
Lambethgull as I know I’m not a liar then I will have to claim to be a saint. It really does come down in the end to a word I use often on this forum and that word is values. Some people will be happy with a win even if that win only came about because the team cheated in order to win and some others won’t.
If I knew my team only won the match because it cheated, then for me it did not win it really is that simple. For me a win really has to mean something and it also more importantly has to be earned by my heroes out on the pitch, earned and not devalued because it was not won fairly and only won because they cheated.
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Post by lambethgull on Jun 16, 2010 19:31:16 GMT
I’m not a liar then I will have to claim to be a saint. It really does come down in the end to a word I use often on this forum and that word is values. You won't get any argument from me there. St Dave has a nice ring to it anyhow   |
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Rags
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Post by Rags on Jun 16, 2010 20:45:42 GMT
Our own Gary Lineaker couldn't have executed such a sublime piece of subterfuge even if he'd wanted to, but if anyone can sit there and claim that they would be as indignant now if Lineaker had won that game with a more prosaic piece of skullduggery, then I believe that person to be either a liar or a saint. You man like Michael Owen tripping over pure air to win the penalty against Argentina in WC 2002? |
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merse
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Post by merse on Jun 16, 2010 20:55:25 GMT
There is always another question that could be asked and that is what was he taught in the very early years when he first started playing football. It does sound when you talk about how Anthony is taught that he is getting the very best training and all the right values and virtues being put in place that will serve him well and would make the chance of him behaving in such a way an almost impossibility. I think you've hit the nail on the head. A look back at Portuguese football over the last half a dozen years or so brings up images of the disgraceful play acting and cheating of Porto in their European final with Celtic, and that of their national team in several tournaments. Such conduct seems endemic in the Portuguese game these days and it is such a shame given the immense pool of talent in that country. It's not only at Arsenal that exemplary conduct is insisted upon but A Class too and we always insist that our players shake hands and exchange congratulations/commiserations after a game, clamp down severely on retaliation and insist on the very same conditions in training. The hardest thing we have encountered at A Class with these youngsters is the over exuberance of goal celebrations; but we have slowly but surely instilled in the lads that exagerated displays can be interpreted as micky taking by the opposition and hence is disrespectful. |
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