I have watched enough soccer matches in my life to have seen some really crazy things. I have seen a goal in a Korean league match come from the someone kicking the ball to the opposing keeper in a show of sportsmanship after an injury, and I have even seen an African match where lightening struck the field and knocked out the majority of players. Yesterday I saw another spectacle that, in its own way, ranks up there with those two.
Anyone who follows the sport knows that one aspect of the game which is probably most loathed is diving. This is when a player pretends to be fouled and falls to the ground in a dramatic fashion hoping to draw the foul and even get the opposing player sent off. It is something that itself is supposed to be a foul but all too often referees are fooled by the antics. If you really follow the sport you also know that the Italians are the world's worst (best?) divers. Players like Totti and Toni will fall at the slightest breeze from a defender, its almost expected.
This weekend I was relaxing in front of a match between Udinese and Sienna, neither of whom I know much about so I was the ultimate neutral fan. At one point a player was injured and, like most stadiums, the Sienna-employed stretcher workers came out to help carry him off the field if he needed it. The player needed no such assistance as he was simply wasting time but as the stretcher workers were picking up their gear one of them took a dramatic and flailing dive backwards as if he had been hit squarely in the jaw. Unfortunately for him replays show that no one was even near him except other stretcher workers. Unfortunately for us, and Udinese, the referee was fooled and actually sent a player off(it must have been a random selection).
I could only find one English-language article on the debacle and it seems to believe that there was contact but they also state that Fiorentina was Udinese's opponent, and I am positive that's not true. It does quote the stretcher worker who said a player hit him with his water-bottle. I can't find any English-language articles that say what has happened a day later though.
Sometimes I find diving infuriating, sometimes it makes me laugh. This time it baffled me.
I am unsure where this fits into the Soccer Fatwa.
Posted by dmason at October 17, 2005 02:51 PM