Gerrard : created a goal from the resulting
penalty in the infamous comeback of the 2005 Champions
League final.
Without going as far as to attribute the origin or most
accepted practice of diving to any single nation in particular, it
suffices to say it has long been a problem in football largely
associated with the Latin countries more than any
other.
Italy, Spain, Portugal and many of the South American nations are
amongst those most often accused of play-acting, while moving
slightly across Europe, even Germany have been accused of
introducing the art of feigning injury to the world of
football.
Labelled talentless on the pitch and hooligans off though they may
have been, one thing that has always remained a point of pride for
the British is their honest play on the pitch - but times are
changing. These days, players such as Joe Cole and Rio Ferdinand
have a touch of continental class about them; English fans'
behaviour, though a far stretch from impeccable, has improved; but
it is on the pitch where many Brits are now attracting attention
for all the wrong reasons.
For so long there has been the rhetoric that the 'foreign' element
of diving must be stamped out of the game by any means necessary,
up to and including retroactive suspensions for players caught
conning the officials who were not punished during the game.
The holier-than-thou attitude taken towards diving in the British
media has been echoed by the managers, who have rarely been afraid
to accuse players from opposing teams of theatrics but, no matter
how blatant, would never dare acknowledge one of their own to have
cheated in order to gain undue advantage during the course of a
game.
What really sets Britain and most notably England apart, though, is
when players themselves begin pointing the finger at each other.
This brings us to last night's star of the show, Steven
Gerrard.
The Liverpool skipper and England favourite has been one of the
only high-profile players to consistently oppose to diving in the
media. Most follow the etiquette of not criticising their fellow
professionals, but Gerrard went as far as to name Chelsea's Ricardo
Carvalho and Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United as players who
are "ruining football". The fact the two of them were teammates for
a Portugal side that had eliminated England from the World Cup did
little to cloud his judgement, of course.
This was without question the 28-year-old's most vitriolic and
famous condemnation of diving and play-acting, but far from the
only one, which makes his own conduct on the pitch that much more
cringe-worthy.
Last night presented Steven Gerrard at his desperate best: hurling
himself into the air and to the floor in the dying minutes at
Anfield to win a penalty, which he duly converted, to scrape his
side a draw against Atletico Madrid. But wait - there's more.
In the infamous comeback of the 2005 Champions League final, a tug
of the sleeve that would not have caused you nor I to even break
stride managed to bring the all-action midfielder to his knees with
the consummate ease of a foreigner; and though the resulting
penalty was saved, it created a goal from the rebound and set
Liverpool on their way to an historic victory.
The list goes on - a Stevie special a couple of seasons ago against
Bolton Wanderers that would have sent Cristiano Ronaldo himself
into a shame spiral went completely ignored - and what makes it
that much more reprehensible in the case of Gerrard is that the
only thing he has failed to fall off as yet is his high
horse.
He is very much representative of the hypocritical state in which
English football currently finds itself. Deco, Filippo Inzaghi,
Guti and Robinho may or may not kiss the grass more often than
Gerrard, but when they rise to their feet and reflect on a con-job
well done, they will not then go and condemn others through the
media for doing exactly the same thing.
Failure to acknowledge the problem would be one thing, and the
culture of encouragement to win by any means necessary that began
on the continent is not in the pure spirit of the game, but the
hypocrisy of condemning others for their misconduct while actively
engaging in the same pathetic practice borders on political farce
and leaves England with even less integrity than their continental
counterparts.
But do they care? Gerrard graciously admitted yesterday's incident
"might not" have been a penalty, but of course nobody has yet dared
to pose him the question of whether he dived or not. His manager
Rafael Benitez went one better and said, with the straightest of
round faces, it was a penalty and that the Reds deserved
to have had one awarded prior to that.
An enraged Atleti are also claiming they were denied a penalty and
there are in fact cries of conspiracy echoing throughout the
Spanish media. Mariano Pernia - who committed the 'foul' - has gone
as far as to claim live on Radio Marca that the linesman
who awarded the penalty apologised afterwards upon realising his
decision was incorrect.
The hilarity hit an ultimate high, however, when ex-Liverpool and
Republic of Ireland defender Phil Babb at first seemed to
acknowledge the dive, but then claimed it was merely testament to
Gerrard's commitment to the cause of pulling his side level, which
of course made it a perfectly reasonable and acceptable thing to
do.
Marca described the penalty award as "completely the wrong
decision." The paper believes many agree that "it appears that they
do not want us to qualify for the next round."
The fact that Jamie Carragher and Javier Mascherano could have had
penalties awarded against them for handball added to the sense of
disillusionment, while the paper dismissed Luis Perea's handball as
not as serious.
Atlético's indignation was not as strong as Marca's appeared to be
as they pointed the finger once again against Uefa president Michel
Platini with the front page headline: "Another Robbery By
Platini."
A small matter of €300,000 for
the win was also raised, but it was the late penalty and the
subsequent four bookings, for Pernía, Perea, John Heitinga and
Sergio Agüero, that has caused the disbelief.
