Valverde & OP

jhuskey said:

I have posted enough on this subject, so all you need to do is go over some past threads.
That being said I have concluded that what has been going on the past few years is a load of horse s**t, so enjoy the aroma.
I don't think it will get any better soon.

Can you post some links jman?

TheDarkLord said:

Agreed. Not sure if diving can be equated to a red card offense though.

Fouling a player in a goal-scoring position is a red card offence. Why shouldnt pretending to be fouled to either stop the opposition scoring or to give your own team a good chance of scoring be treated the same?

Anticyclone said:

Fouling a player in a goal-scoring position is a red card offence. Why shouldnt pretending to be fouled to either stop the opposition scoring or to give your own team a good chance of scoring be treated the same?

For some reason, unlike most Americans, the diving doesn't really bother me all that much. I mean, it's understandable, huge benefit/risk ratio.

However, I do like the idea of post-match reviews. Maybe give a 3 match ban for blatant diving (e.g. not even touched), 1 match for "simulation".

However, most "diving" appears to me to be simply going down when feeling any kind of pressure which is often hard to distinguish from pressure that actually takes a player down. I'm actually surprised when seeing an attacker even attempting to stay on his feet if contacted by a defender these days.

TheDarkLord said:

Can you post some links jman?

I'll need to research to remember.

Wayne666 said:

However, most "diving" appears to me to be simply going down when feeling any kind of pressure which is often hard to distinguish from pressure that actually takes a player down. I'm actually surprised when seeing an attacker even attempting to stay on his feet if contacted by a defender these days.

The referees are more switched onto it nowadays IMO so the methods have to become subtler. An example would be the first penalty appeal that Gerrard had yesterday in the Liverpool v Blackburn game (dont know if you watched it). He could quite easily and naturally have avoided the goalkeeper. What he actually did was trail his foot to the side in an unnatural way so that there was a slight contact and down he went. Penalty wasn't given. Well done to the ref there although he did miss a couple of blatant fouls on Gerrard later🙄

Anticyclone said:

He could quite easily and naturally have avoided the goalkeeper. What he actually did was trail his foot to the side in an unnatural way so that there was a slight contact and down he went. Penalty wasn't given. Well done to the ref there although he did miss a couple of blatant fouls on Gerrard later🙄

No I didn't see it, but I've seen plenty of times where it is fairly obvious on the slow-mo replay that the attacker was seeking contact so that he could fall and try to draw the penalty. A good diver at least waits for the contact before falling.

Bad divers either never make contact or are falling before they even make contact. I think a 3 and 1 game suspension would be fair for those. It would be very difficult to give out suspensions for the more subtle dives, which constitue the vast majority of cases.

Anticyclone said:

The referees are more switched onto it nowadays IMO so the methods have to become subtler. An example would be the first penalty appeal that Gerrard had yesterday in the Liverpool v Blackburn game (dont know if you watched it). He could quite easily and naturally have avoided the goalkeeper. What he actually did was trail his foot to the side in an unnatural way so that there was a slight contact and down he went. Penalty wasn't given. Well done to the ref there although he did miss a couple of blatant fouls on Gerrard later🙄

Also, it is annoying when coaches [censored] about penalties not being given. In the past, there was a problem with too much fouling. But now, things have gone to the other side with too much diving. I hope they change rules sometime to take care of this.