Football or Diving Ballet?

Recently, Sergio Aguero claimed that foreign players in the English Premier League were being singled out as “divers.” He said: ‘“Yes, always. It happens everywhere. There is a little bit of privilege with players who come from that country, but that is normal. We just play our game, and the referee’s job is to know who is tricking him and who is not.”’

Now, it is quite well known that football culture on the continent in Europe allows for “buying fouls from the referee,” justification being that one is helping the team that way. Cesc Fabregas did it, and Cristiano Ronaldo had quite an impressive portfolio while plying his “trade” in the Premier League. More recently, Luis Suarez has been diving and practicing looks of anguish, and has been doing for so long that penalties are no longer awarded to Liverpool when he’s brought down illegally in the box. Diving—in the minds of players on the continent, possibly—is more a form of calling attention to a foul rather than blatant cheating.

Cheating never has been condoned in any sport, and will never be. To generalize all foreign players as “divers,” (meaning cheats) would be grossly unfair and thoughtless, which is exactly what Sir Alex Ferguson. He said, “Foreign players only have themselves to blame if they are not treated fairly by Premier League referees.” This is an extremely cunning response to Aguero’s statement—one that doesn’t refer to the preference that Aguero pointed out—and it is as terrible an example of inductive reasoning gone wrong as one will ever see. Such a statement from a Man City icon irks Sir Alex due to the number of British “divers” on his team. Rooney dived to stop the unbeaten run of The Invincibles. It is also said Ashley Young loses his appearance bonus if he doesn’t dive like this and this. Apparently, it’s part of the Man United coaching manual, because the academy recruits are doing it too, and even for their national team. If they’re diving while on national duty, it can’t be an un-British thing, can it? Here’s the kicker: Michael Owen has said, “Foreign influence started the ball rolling on diving in England.” Might be true, we don’t know, but what we do know is that Michael Owen was a pretty good student of whichever foreigner diving teacher he learned from, back in 1998.

Aguero is a shining example of a player who doesn’t “simulate” to influence the referee. Most prominently, when he scored the goal that won the title for City last season, he had a chance to go down when a QPR defender clearly makes contact with him. Instead, he stayed on his feet and scored his way into the hearts of Man City fans forever. Would we have blamed Aguero for diving if he’d gone down? What if Aguero had dived (most definitely, there was contact) and the referee hadn’t given a penalty because it was a “foreign player”? If it had been an English striker in Aguero’s position, and he’d dived, would he have been castigated for drawing upon one of the continent’s footballing dark arts?

It makes one think, doesn’t it? Diving will always be part of the game as long as there are high stakes involved, which is always at the professional level. As professionals, players are behooves them to gain as much advantage as possible, ethically, for the team that pays their wages. With high stakes, there are jobs and livelihoods too on the line. A relegation threatened team needs 3 points to survive, and their player is fouled in the box. Would we blame the player if he went to ground?

Here’s some brilliant commentary from Gary Neville about the diving phenomenon, who wasn’t shy of a good take-off himself. The only point I disagree with Gary Neville is, he says Ashley Young changes direction and makes the most of Ciaran Clark’s silliness, where as Ashley Young dribbles the ball to the right, AND THEN, his left leg goes searching for Clark’s outstretched leg to fall over. That’s NOT making the most of it, that’s cheating. Gary Neville was plain protecting his team Man United, but his views about diving otherwise are plainly phenomenal.

As a little goodbye gift, here’s a diving hypocrite.