On Wednesday, we witnessed the biggest comeback in Champions League history.
Do you want to know the difference between the Olympics and Football?
Cheaters get caught and punished in the Olympics (sure it might take months/years for them to be caught, but they are still punished).
As for Footballers? Often nothing.
Diving has come far in football. At one stage footballers who dived used to be slated in the papers and scrutinised by the pundits, but that was years ago. Moving to the present, it appears that diving has just been accepted by football, that it’s part of the game and there’s nothing we can do about it, hell it’s even “smart play” (especially if you’re English).
When “analysing” the game on BT Sport, some of the words to come out of the pundit’s mouths were ‘clever from Suarez’, ‘if you show one bit of weakness he’s [Suarez] going to pounce (literally)’. I lost my head when I heard that.
How can these pundits justify what Suarez did there? The narrative of the game? Because if he didn’t do it then this wouldn’t have been the biggest comeback in Champions League history? Well in that case we should let Usain Bolt pump himself with steroids and break the 100 meters again, what an amazing story that would be!
Other people say that’s what winners do, they find a way to win. I’ll be sure to tell my tutor that when I get caught with answers in my pockets during an exam. Real winners will find a way to win without cheating, and it’s disappointing to see a player as good as Suarez feel the need to cheat.
Some would argue that it’s not Suarez’s fault, but the FA/FIFA/UEFA for not stopping it. That’s a fair point, these governing bodies need to do something about it. They’ve just let it get worse and worse every year.
Introducing bans would be a great step in the right direction, surely that would discourage players from diving. Giving Suarez a three-match ban would certainly make him think twice about doing it again. PSG would be the losers regardless though, but hopefully the introduction of video technology will help prevent diving in game as well.
I can only imagine how angry I would have been if this had happened to the Gunner’s.
Not that it hasn’t (Rooney’s dives comes to mind), it’s one thing to lose because the other team is simply better, but it’s another when you know you would have won if it weren’t for a dive.
It does make me proud to think that we don’t seem to have many divers in our team. Sure, Giroud overreacts with every foul, but I can’t remember too many instances when we’ve dived. I remember Santi’s against West Brom years ago which helped us win the match. I was quite embarrassed with it, but to my knowledge I’ve never seen him do it again.
I would like to think that comes down to Wenger. He wants us to play and win the right way, while it wouldn’t surprise me if other managers encouraged their players to do the opposite.
@Millar_Colin on twitter summarised it perfectly: ‘Amazing how cheating is rewarded so highly and forgotten so quickly’. Football needs to change, because this is just becoming ridiculous.