[No title - Bile welling up]

Slate, with whom I have passed a great number of hours reading different opinion pieces, usually has thought provoking and intelligently written pieces - even if you don't always agree with their politics. They, like most main-stream media sources, are dedicating a certain amount of copy to the once in four years circus spectacle otherwise known as the World Cup.

Dave Eggers wrote an article last week discussing "The True Story about American Soccer," which for the most part I agree with. His insight into diving in soccer is pretty much point on with mine:

Flopping is essentially a combination of acting, lying, begging, and cheating, and these four behaviors make for an unappealing mix[...]Once the referees have decided either to issue a penalty or not to our Fakey McChumpland, he will jump up, suddenly and spectacularly uninjured—excelsior!—and will kick the ball over to his teammate and move on.

Good story, glad to hear that most people agree with me, move on...until this morning I just click on Slate to see what's going on and I see this fine title: Why Diving Makes Soccer Great. I don't read a lot of opinion pieces about football - it's pretty cut and dried for me. There are certain aspects I like and certain aspects I don't like. I can see with my own two eyes and know the rules well enough that this two-bit blogger doesn't need some other two-bit blogger or learned hack to tell me what to think. But, taking into consideration my views on diving in soccer, I think you all can understand my automatic reaction to this, which I won't reprint here, but it was along the lines of "what the hell?!?"

The author, one Austin Kelley, basically argues that diving keeps the defenders honest and states unequivocally, "rarely do athletes tumble without being touched at all. Usually, they embellish contact to make sure the referee notices a foul, not to deceive him completely." Excuse me for one second (at this point small children and the easily sensitive should turn away), but this is complete bullshit. Has this guy watched one freaking football match? Ever! Taking his first argument, that players rarely dive without any sort of provocation...This happens nearly every game. But, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is saying that rarely do players fall without a defensemen for 5 meters. Fine, I can agree to this. The sun rarely shines at night either, I think we can all agree.
It's the second part of his statement that is just worthless. A player feels the slightest brush of contact and flops to the ground. Whether he rolls around like a pig on fire or not is of less concern. THERE IS NO GOOD THAT COMES FROM THIS. Football, in and of itself, is a physical game. 22 men are running at full speed to try to control a ball and put it into the opposing team's net. Contact will happen. Most of the time when a foul is embellished, it's because the player with the ball has been beaten...He kicks it, sees that he won't be able to recover and flops. Either this or he is within 20 meters of the goal mouth.

I do agree with Kelley that FIFA has failed spectacularly in controlling the diving for this Copa Mondial and am not going to get into the cultural differences about diving. The Italians are notorious, the French are better than average, but each and every team does it in each and every match.

Most respectfully, Mr. Kelley, I request that you shut your mouth.

His article is not all bad though. He keyed me into the fact that there has been the discussion of a "Pink card" for divers. I like this idea. Not necessarily PC in today's modern world, but it could help control this a little bit.

Just to come back to this article for a minute. He cites Thierry Henry as one of those players who "will stay on their feet at all cost for the sake of a beautiful pass or a brilliant run at the goal." But what if the pass isn't beautiful or the run isn't brilliant. Henry took a dive from the high board last night. Receiving a glancing blow to his chest from Spanish defender Puyol, Thierry brought both hands to his face and dropped to the ground in agony. This is justifiable, Mr. Kelley? He got touched in the chest. Puyols did not do it on purpose. Play the freaking game clean and straight. Henry's a really good player, and he doesn't dive too much, but that only adds to the fact. In my DP rating, he would be around a 2 and that is how Puyol conceded the free kick and got a yellow card for his efforts. There is no place for these actions in football. I don't care what some writer from Brooklyn says.