A fairly recent development in the modern game has seen players
‘falling’ to the ground in ‘agony’ at an alarming rate. It stops
play, kills the flow of matches, and threatens to harm the
credibility of what many term as ‘the beautiful game.’
What is this horrible atrocity, you may ask, that ills the modern
game? Well, it’s not a tangible illness that harms throngs of
people in third world countries. Nor is it a real life version of a
disease reminiscent of something from a science fiction movie. It
is, however, hurting the already unstable reputation of today’s
football.
What I’m referring to, of course, is the ‘diving epidemic’ that has
become much more prevalent in recent seasons. At the recently
completed 2008 European Championships in Austria and Switzerland,
for example, the play was scintillating, the passion was
immeasurable, and the diving was, well, rampant.
In most of the matches, especially those in which nations such as
Italy, Spain and Portugal were participating, players would go down
with phantom injuries, thus compelling the opposing team to put the
ball out of play. More often that not, however, the supposedly
injured player would then pick himself up without any medical
assistance required (or, if any at all, would just get a quick shot
of the ‘magic spray’) and continue play as if nothing was ever
wrong in the first place.
Now, while this may seem like simple gamesmanship and harmless to
the uninformed bystander, any football purist or true fan of the
game will tell you that such occurrences will ultimately ruin the
viewing experience, and the quality of football overall. Why would
a team need to develop solid defensive tactics when they can just
feign injury every time they lose possession? Surely, you can by
and large keep your opponent off the score-sheet if you never allow
them to hit you on the counter-attack. The credo of many a
footballer seems to be: take a dive, save a goal.
What’s more, it appears as though many managers are encouraging, or
failing to discourage, this type of behavior. Not once during the
Euros did I see a coach pull a player aside for a quick word of
chastisement for his apparent dive on the pitch. You would
be hard fought to get any professional to admit it, but it is
strongly suspected that some managers in fact allow players to
practice diving techniques on the training ground; it would almost
have to be so, as some players are so good at it that they can win
free-kicks on a regular basis.
What, if anything, can be done about this? I’m sure many possible
solutions were bandied about in homes and pubs alike while
supporters viewed the matches, but I’ve got one of my own. When a
player goes down and play is stopped, the injured (and I use that
word loosely) player, would have to remain off the pitch for a
determined amount of time. Therefore, in addition to being required
to go off the pitch for just a moment if medical assistance is
provided, he would have to stay on the touchline for, say, five
minutes.
You can bet your bottom dollar that if this were to be instituted
across the football world, you would see a huge and sudden decrease
in diving. With a team being forced to play five minutes at a time
with ten men against the opponent’s full-strength eleven, managers
would feel compelled to make sure that their players did not even
think about taking a dive. Additionally, I’m sure that players
would know that if they did take a dive, they would be in for quite
a tongue-lashing from their managers, as well as probably losing
his first-team spot for at least a little while.
Now, as with any type of solution, new problems will arise. The
most apparent issue that could come up is that teams would begin
playing the ball out immediately if they saw an opponent go down,
whether or not the fall was legitimate. A way to prevent such
activity would be for the referee to be the only person who can
stop play, and for players to be told that they are not, under any
circumstances, to stop play by putting the ball out of bounds.
There is also another problem though with this proposal, and that
is the issue of when a player really is genuinely injured.
Just like when any new rule or amendment to old rules is
instituted, this would take some getting used to. However, in time,
it could in fact improve the quality of football by forcing sides
to begin playing the way the game was intended to be played - the
beautiful way.
What are your views on the diving epidemic? What do you
believe is the best solution to this new problem?
Joel Whitehead
From Goal.com
