A draw, and the most blatant dive so far

Jun 21, 2010 10:01


We got a goal against Italy! And almost got a second one. Their goal was a dubiously awarded penalty--Italy have got diving down to a fine art--so I think we did bloody well considering.

As for that blatant and utterly shameless Cote d'Ivoire dive that succeeded in getting Kaka sent off for a slight tap on the chest (Keita falls, clutching his face in pretend agony) I do in fact have words.

It's time soccer used something like cricket's third umpire who makes the final decision based on replays if asked by the two on-field umpires. Dives and handballs are shown pretty clearly on the big screen at major matches; how hard is it for a "second ref" to do that, or even for a the ref and linesmen to actually look at the damned thing and see what happened? I hear that rugby players are fined or penalised for behaviour captured on camera (I don't watch rugby) but I'm told it's cleaned up the game a lot. Soccer could do with this. At the very least, the decision against Kaka could be reversed, but right now the ref has the final word and it's sometimes just wrong.

world cup

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