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Cut out the diving and tit-for-tat circus will stop: SMITH ON SOCCER
IS THERE anything worse than a diver in football?
Actually yes, there is.
Far worse are those who kick lumps out of attacking players, push, pull and batter them then hold their hands out in innocence when the referee blows for a foul.
"You know he's a conman ref," says the look on their faces as they do the diving motion with their hands.
Maybe, but the art of fouling, then claiming the opponent dived plays on the reputation of players who 'go down a bit too easily' and is even more devious than diving.
Those who simulate simulation are taking the integrity of the game to even lower levels.
Likewise with the idea that if a player goes down under a tackle that isn't a foul he must be booked for diving.
Nonsense.
Players fall over sometimes when they are tackled, often because they have their feet taken from under them.
It doesn't have to be a foul and it doesn't have to be a dive.
It's just what happens. And it hurts.
Ask Barnsley's Canadian international Iain Hume how much football can hurt, look at the scar on his head and wonder how he'll ever play again.
And anyone who has ever had six studs in his knee as Cristiano Ronaldo did on Tuesday night's live Champions League game will know that kind of thing smarts a little.
You don't have to be earning 100,000 to feel it.
Football, like any contact sport, can be painful and we are sometimes a bit quick to forget from the comfort of the stands or our armchairs in our delirious search for villains, scapegoats and excuses to insult.
The truth is however that this tit-for-tat circus of simulation would all disappear if players didn't dive in the first place.
Simple really.
MAD fans award of the week to the barmy army of Wednesdayites who shrugged off the cold, the national debt and their team's run of poor form to traipse all the way to Blackpool on a freezing Tuesday night.
The 707 who made the trip got the result their devotion deserved, something the Blades in the equally impressive 27,111 at Bramall Lane on Tuesday night clearly didn't.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
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Friday 10 February 2012
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