To dive or not to?

Controversy never stays away, does it? I thought we had had the weekly share when Anton Ferdinand refused to shake John Terry‘s hand, but I was wrong. Miles away, Danny Welbeck won a penalty off Ali Al Habsi, and the Lactics were left fuming. The goalie felt justice had been served as he saved the subsequent penalty, but that didn’t prove costly for United as they cruised to a 4-0 win. Ashley Young and Sergio Busquets happen to be the most ‘trolled’ footballers when it comes to this issue of diving. I was left wondering, why is it that some players ‘cheat’ in this way? Do they really mean to? Or does the spur of the moment tempt them to dive? Is it an instinctive action? I thought of putting myself in the footballer’s shoes.

Here, I try visualizing a game and to construct situations where there is the temptation to dive, can I resist it?

The diary of a footballer on matchday:

The opposition, who are the favorites, gets the half underway. Here I am, in my No. 10 position, that of an attack minded midfielder. The opponents maintain possession, but hardly anything to worry about for us. They pass it sideways, backward and very few forward oriented passes. Nothing yet to show for their efforts. I, along with our center forward, contribute to it as well, pressing hard when their center halves or goalie has the ball.

The minutes tick along, they have created a few chances by now, but our goalie is having a good day. But my frustration in growing, I am hardly getting the ball. I feel that my teammates are always picking the wrong option and passing backwards or to the wingers. The opposing full backs are currently getting the better of them. We have played 35 minutes, and the board stills reads 0-0. The opponents have won a corner now. The dead ball specialist whips it in, and I rise above all others to meet it. I feel that big burly center forward pulling my shirt as I jump. Instinctively, I never wanted to do it all along, but I immediately go to ground. WHISTLE. What happened? I look up at the night sky and glimpse our goalie placing the ball to the ground and then it hits me: I dived, drew the foul, and won my team a free kick. My one crucial action relieved us of all the pressure of that corner kick. My only impact in this game until now, I thought, rather sarcastically. Nobody noticed that I dived. I could make that out as there weren’t any boos from the opposition fans. That big center forward was the only other one apart from me, who happened to know the fact.

Half time.

We start the second half, and give the ball away cheaply. They are in another spell of possession. Pass after pass, I am tired of pressing and closing down. I know, that chance will present itself. I must be patient. I must continue to work hard. My game looks to be getting better. Teammates are passing to me more regularly now, and I am making the right decision on every pass. I haven’t created a good chance yet, so I attempt from long range. The goalie catches it, launches it up the field, the big guy gets the flick on, and their speedster races ahead, rounds our keeper and scores! 60 minutes played. Still time left. But then I have another thing to deal with now – the fear of being substituted. When I begin to think of it, I am among our worst players today, I had to go. But, as fate would have it, I manage to labor on. I am also getting very irritated, the opposition defensive midfielder has made a few nasty tackles on me and hasn’t been booked yet. The clock keeps ticking. It’s 85 minutes now, we are still a goal behind as I get the instruction to play as a forward as the manager changes the formation, deploying me as an additional striker. And what a masterstroke it proves to be. A teammate plays a hopeful through ball along the ground. I see the opportunity and am onto it in a flash. My marker has just backed off a bit, expecting that I am not going to receive any pass. But I grab this opportunity. At last, a chance to be the hero, to equalize. My first touch is pretty good, it beats the center halves marking me. Now I am one on one with their goalie. I must get it right. I continue to charge, taking a second touch. With the third, I try getting around the goalie, but I immediately realize that the touch is heavy. I somehow get it around the goalkeeper, who hasn’t yet gone to ground, but the ball is rolling fast across the face of goal, the angle is tightening up. I need to touch it once more and score. I must! But….. The goalie gets back into the contest, he comes diving at my feet from behind. I realize I have a much better opportunity – dive, get him sent off and convert the resulting penalty. And this time, I dive, DELIBERATELY.

The whistle is loud and the uproar from the crowd is even louder. There is a card coming out. The pessimist in me thinks that I am going to get booked for simulation but the color is red. The goalie has been sent off! Penalty! I convert the resulting spot kick and the game fades out into a 1-1 draw.

My teammates congratulate me for my heroics. But deep down, I know what I just did, and what lay in store in the newspapers tomorrow. Headlines screaming “New Olympic prospect”, “He dives when he wants”, etc. Partly true. But I wonder why they do not realize it. Don’t they jump traffic signals to reach their destination quicker? Is that sufficient for me to label them as “law breakers” for weeks without giving them a break? Why can’t they try to draw the analogy to the case of a footballer? You MUST score, no escape and you manage to do it by hook or crook. Surely, even they would have done the same what I did.

As players, our basic duty is to play fair. But sometimes, the magnitude of the occasion gets the better of us. The huge stadium around you, the situation of the match, and the potential effects of your actions is very tempting. Most of us dive, whether instinctively, in the spur of the moment, or deliberately. But that one action must not give us such harsh labels. Diving will be part of the game; it will never go away. And fans, I know it hurts when you drop points because your opponent dived and got away with it, but haven’t there been happier times? Your team might have benefited with the odd dive or two in the past as well.

As for those footballers who dive week in week out deliberately, trying to fool the referee, you better not play the game than cheat that much.

All in all, excuse players when they dive once in a while, but once you start to feel that they are overdoing it, playing the fool, then you are free to chant whatever you want!