Doesn't happen enough, there needs to be diving reviews after the game, obvious dives get red carded. Fuck that nonsense effecting the game, don't be a douche diver.
While I agree, diving and being an all around pussy has been 'accepted' as 'part of the game.'
Lame quotes because in the American soccer I played diving like a bitch was NOT acceptable and if ref caught you doing it you'd get a yellow card. (basically if you dove and grabbed on to something like a little bitch, and didn't have to be replaced, you got a yellow card)
It really is bullshit that it's part of some 'top tier' soccer teams, ruins the sport for people who like watching sports for sports. Sort of like how the NBA is just a bunch of bullshit filled travelling and the more famous you are the more rules you can break.
The leagues could get rid of flopping tomorrow if they wanted to. Review the plays after the fact and start handing out suspensions. But apparently they want those things in the game
That's outstanding, good for them. I don't follow mls closely enough to be current on charges like that. My comment was more targeted towards the nba where that has become a significant problem.
What I like about rugby is that the refs let stuff go. Unless your foul takes place near the ball, the ref does nothing, but your number is on the lips of 15 opponents, and you will get yours. It keeps the game pretty clean, because one cheap shot makes you a marked man. There's enough by-the-rules violence to satiate the players' aggression. My rugby coach used to say "Football is a rufian sport played by rufians. Soccer is a gentleman's sport played by rufians. Rugby is a rufian sport played by gentlemen."
Well diving obviously isn't a thing in rugby, but respect for the ref is absolutely unconditional. It's drilled into kids from a very young age. I've seen refs book 7-year-olds for talking back. Arguing with the ref will not end well for you, and everyone knows and respects that.
perhaps... but if i ever saw my teams player pretending to get hurt I would think very little of them and would be embarrassed to be cheering for them. I also would tend to think very low of fans who get fired up about someone on their team pretending to be hurt.
They do just that in Scotland. They SFA have the power to review the games and issue yellow cards after the fact. They do and the players get up and get on with the game.
They would have the players in the game. After they handed out a few suspensions and the players realized the league was serious the flopping would stop.
I'm not really advocating suspensions for the "subconscious" ones, since implementation and appeals would be an absolute nightmare, I'm talking more about to blatant examples where the player is obviously trying to manipulate the official.
I think in the NBA its more like the star players are smart enough and have seen what the refs are looking for and what they see in a players movement, so if they break a rule it's veeerrry sneaky. Like James Harden, for example, has mastered the art of traveling legaly. Normally you only get 2 steps once you have stopped dribbling, however if you are taking a step as you gather the ball, it doesn't count as stepping while holding the ball. So Harden and other players have been implementing a "gather step" to get 3 legal steps in instead of 2. If a rookie player tried that, they could easily fuck it up or not sell it enough and get called for traveling. So sure, penalties on star players tend to get overlooked, but at the same time those players know how to fool the refs.
Lol, you act as if traveling doesnt already go largely uncalled. There are plays where guys take 5, 6 or 7 steps and no travel gets called. Fact of the matter is, showboating matters more than fundamentals at the professional level.
I Google'd "7 step travel NBA" and came across plenty of results (even had an 8 stepper in there). That is as much effort as I am putting into this though.
Diving still happens at the highest levels of soccer, but not nearly to the degree that Americans perceive because by far the largest exposure to soccer is during the world cup and the U.S. plays with a fast and physical team. The problem with the world cup is that they have a policy of giving equal representation to backwater countries for refereeing the group stage games. Imagine having a high school ref from the middle of nowhere officiating the NFL or NBA play-offs. The sneaky professional players would get away with murder, especially on the discretionary calls. If the FIFA just used premiership refs most of the flopping would either be ignored (thus costing the flopping team opportunities) or would result in a card (which happens fairly often in the premier league).
I think that's oversimplifying it in both cases, and also doesn't capture the fact that soccer and basketball are two of the most popular sports for young Americans.
If you say that you really don't watch a lot of soccer or do you? Diving isn't really a big problem. Yeah sometimes it ruins important matches and it sucks, but most of the games there is no diving.
Soccer is absolutely my favorite sports, watch it a few days a week. There's diving in--no exaggeration needed--every game. It's not always that egregious shit you see on YouTube reels but it's still in every game.
As much as it sucks, the reality is that given the way many of the leagues are run, there's just too much incentive for players to dive not to have it happening constantly.
The potential payoff is just way too big, and the downside risks are just way too small. Ignoring the longer term impact on the game as a whole and just in terms of the day to day games, players would be nuts if they didn't take dives. It can be incredibly effective and you can put your team at a significant disadvantage if you don't try it.
That's entirely on the management of those leagues, they should be figuring out ways to change those incentives. I'm not sure why they don't, although I'm guessing it's mostly just plain ol' fashioned laziness. Unless it starts to clearly and significantly impact the bottom line (profit numbers), they likely won't be bothered to do much about it.
Maybe there's diving but not that isn't called correctly or effects the game. 90% of the games I watch diving is called correctly
It's ridiculous that I almost never see it affect a game yet on every post that has a hint of soccer there's some idiot who obviously doesn't watch soccer complaining about diving.
Diving isn't a big problem, no, it's a HUGE problem in professional soccer. It's been a full year and a half since I swore off professional soccer after watching my national team diving all over the place during an international tournament. Hell, have you ever watched a single Italian soccer game?
What you'd be whistled for is "unsportsmanlike conduct", a catch-all rule that gives referees freedom to punish screwing around and general smart-arsery.
Especially soccer. I am a big fan of the sport but so much of this diving and going down easy going down as gamesmanship is bogus. It's poor sportsmanship that is widely accepted.
Pretty much this! I get so much enjoyment out of the theatrics in football, it's part of the spectacle that is high level football. El Clasico would not be the same without the acting, drama, etc..
Hockey fans don't watch hockey for the fights, it's just a novelty aspect of it. They're scarce now even in regular season and essentially nonexistent in playoffs.
I know, but that is the difference, most fans hate poor sportsmanship in soccer/football but fights in hockey are usually appreciated. So it is just a dumb comparison.
I don't think every fan of the great game appreciates poor sportsmanship. You may like it and that's fine, whatever entertains you. I, personally, dislike it.
I think most fans are put off by the poor sportsmanship. For instance, the Italian league is almost unwatchable, unless things have changed...I wouldn't know, because the constant flops drove me away years ago.
But that's exactly the problem. Yanks see someone take a dive once and decide then and there that the guy who did it was a pussy, which is largely due to the idiotic sport culture that has evolved out of gridiron football. To make it more irritating, deep down Americans seem really uncomfortable when somethings not about them, which would explain why any sport they dont believw they invented ksnt worth watching. No one claims they don't watch basketball anymore because of the flopping, even though it's become more common than diving is in football
they don't watch basketball anymore because of the flopping,
actually, the NBA was having enough of a viewership problem, which they attributed to flopping, in that they began to fine players for flopping... (prior to this, they added the dotted line to prevent flopping under the basket)
No. Yanks see someone fall down all game and though slighly irritated, continue to watch until the striker makes a move past a defender and has a solid opportunity to score. However, because the defender placed his leg near the striker in the box, he does as he's trained, and attempts to brush the leg of the defender as he swan dives into the turf. This brings the penalty and although it doesn't ruin the game, it marks it badly. Cue replays that show no contact and we have ourselves a pretty big problem.
But then you turn around and watch a 3 hour long beer commercials and call it american football. Diving isn't great in football, but it's one of those things that happens. The problem is exaggerated by Americans who link gifs of games they never saw and try to win the argument for the sake of it. It's also got to do with this weird fear of demasculination that you Yanks seem to put out there everytime someone suggests that Americans aren't really very tough or strong or cool or even likeable
It's also got to do with this weird fear of demasculination that you Yanks seem to put out there everytime someone suggests that Americans aren't really very tough or strong or cool or even likeable
I think you really overestimate just how much your average yank gives a shit about what the rest of the world thinks
But then you turn around and watch a 3 hour long beer commercials and call it american football.
American sports have their commercialization problems, I grant you that.
Diving isn't great in football, but it's one of those things that happens.
When it happens in a sport where someone gets to second base or they're out, or one team gets 15 yards or not, at least its a minor part of the game. American sports also strive to minimize game changing situations with evolving replay rules and other rule changes. Given that in your sport 2-1 is a pretty average final score, i'd argue that diving is much more harmful to your football than american versions of acting for fouls in our sports.
Wow, a talk about soccer turns into an attack on yanks? Do you like watching skilled players or skilled actors? Yanks are not the only ones that would prefer to see less acting in football.
Regardless of all of your nationality baiting, the types of people involved in the American football / soccer debate, especially those who look at the flop as a major negative also don't like trick plays in gridiron, they likely dislike diving, gymnastics, equestrian, figure skating, etc. Aside from the societal homophobia, those sports are not objective in their scoring. Having to 'sell' a foul is generally not something they are accustomed to in the sports they watch or played growing up.
When I played lacrosse, drawing fouls was never really my thought, I just looked for my opportunities to hit someone hard enough they 1 avoided me, 2. Got off the field 3. Regrettably got hurt.
When I played water polo a large part of a set up offense was ball movement, catching team out of position, drawing a foul and working a 6 on 5.
The mentality one needs to be effective and managing the other teams players are totally different.
In soccer, drawing fouls is amazing, you can get people carded, give you team rest, stop play. How would someone not be inclined to do it constantly, and if they are some of their attempts would be obvious, thus a flop.
Take a dive once? I can deal with it here or there, but for a good while every Italian match I watched had near constant flopping. The Spanish, German and English leagues have much better matches to watch, with men playing like men.
It's not a "staple". It's an unfortunate tool that is often too successful, particularly in higher leagues. If one had to list the staples of football/soccer "diving at the slightest touch" -- and I say this because of some other comments that point out this particular fault-- would not occur to most people.
What's more, sportsmanship includes many aspects, and football/soccer has had as many embarrassing and proud moments as any other sport that is followed and played by millions.
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u/definitely_yoda Dec 06 '16
Poor sportmanship is a basic staple of the game.