Diving

Tonight I arrived at the gym just before Mexico and Honduras started their World Cup qualifier. Honestly, I was pretty excited about this. Growing up in the Philippines we didn't have a football team, so soccer was our biggest field sport. I grew up playing soccer in intramurals and every chance we got in P.E. I honestly enjoy the game. My enjoyment of the game doesn't match my sister's enjoyment, but that is only because I spend more time watching the game than I spend watching the men playing the game.
There was another reason why I was excited. I get on the elliptical machine for an hour. A soccer half lasts for 45 minutes plus any injury stoppage time. I figured that if I started before the game actually started I would have a few minutes head start. By the time the half ended I would be close to being done with my work out. It was the best of both worlds. I got to watch half of a World Cup soccer qualifier and had something to keep me occupied for the better part of my work out.
Then the game started.
To be honest with you there was more diving in this game than in the Olympic synchronized diving event. Mexico was playing dirty but they probably did not deserve the two red cards and the plethora of yellow cards they received. My guess is that the weather played a part in the fouls that were happening. It was raining pretty hard and there was a lot of water on the field. Still though, one would think that the refs would have taken this into account.
From what I saw it looked like Honduras had a singular approach to the game. If a Honduras player had the ball and a Mexican player had any chance of stealing the ball the Honduras player would simply fall down and start rolling in agony. They would then look around and see what the ref was doing. If the ref blew his whistle and walked toward the player he would continue rolling in agony until the foul had been awarded. Then he would get up an have an instantaneous recovery, playing as if he hadn't been severely injured, rolling on the ground just a few moments before. If on the other hand the ref didn't stop the game the player would have an expression on his face that read something like "Oh (expletive of your choice, I choose 'darnit'), the ref didn't stop the game!" He would then jump up and get back in the game like nothing had happened. The best was when a player from both teams would be rolling on the ground clutching at their knees. When the ref awarded the foul the player charged with the foul would jump up and start arguing that he was the one fouled and now cheated by the ref. Yeah, nice one there buddy!
Soccer is a fantastic game to go watch and to play. The fans of most countries not called the United States are amazing. Diving takes a lot of the joy out of the game though. Who wants to watch a team wimp it's way to a victory? If there is a clean tackle try to steal the ball back, don't stop the game by rolling on the ground so that you can get the ball back the dirty way. Honestly, who enjoys that? If I want to watch grown men get knocked over by a stiff breeze I'll watch the NBA. At least the NBA refs are just as likely to charge the person who flops as the person who might have knocked them over!
Perhaps we need to take these players and have them watch a high school girls game. You want to see players play hard and take the hits? These girls will deliver. It is more fun. I respect the players more. I am more likely to blame the ref for a bad call than get mad at a player for trying to cheat by ref.
Oh, there was a news article about a new strategy coming out of the top Italian league. Here is the link.
http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=ap-italy-shortsdown&prov=ap&type=lgns