They rip soccer because they’re too old-fashioned to accept a sport their father never took them to see. You know them as soccer-bashing sportswriters. I call them sports dinosaurs, or as one reader suggested, the “Zubaz generation.”
Their numbers decrease with each World Cup, but their repetitive (and often recycled) rants have picked up steam lately with the amount of diving taking place during games.
For once, they’re right.
Soccer should be embarrassed over the amount of flopping some players do to draw a foul. One match it’s Italy’s Fabio Grosso looking like he was shot in the back to earn the game-winning penalty kick against Australia.
The next game, France’s Thierry Henry uncharacteristically holds on to his face to set up the go-ahead goal even though replays showed shoulder-to-shoulder contact.
U.S. fans won’t forget the images of goalkeeper Kasey Keller hovering over a fallen Ghana player screaming for him to get up.
Earlier in the game, Oguchi Onyewu stood in disbelief after his challenge for a header floored a Ghana player. This earned Ghana a penalty kick, which sucked the life out of the United States and crippled hopes of a comeback.
“They were diving all over,” U.S. captain Claudio Reyna said after the Ghana loss. “Before the World Cup, [FIFA said] the referees were going to penalize that and they didn’t seem to. [Ghana] killed 5 to 10 minutes of that second half just by diving and rolling around.”
The United States showed its toughness when Brian McBride re-entered the Italy game after getting his face bloodied by an elbow, but don’t for one second think American players are too macho to flail their arms. Diving has leaked into Major League Soccer. Freddy Adu flopped just minutes into his debut with the U.S. national team in January.
“Why not?” Adu said about his dive. “I had some contact in the box. With two minutes left in the game, you go down. Either the ref makes a call against you or you cause a penalty kick.”
Clearly, you don’t need to be a veteran to know one of soccer’s worst-kept secrets. Until FIFA takes a harder stance against these theatrics like it did in 2002, the risk always will be worth the reward.
This World Cup has been hurt by diving, bad refs and the lowest goal-per-game average since 1990, but that doesn’t mean the matches haven’t gotten the hearts of soccer fans pumping. Four of the eight matches in the round of 16 were decided after the 80th minute.
The countries with the greatest soccer traditions make up most of the remaining eight teams, giving fans quarterfinals matches that just as easily could have been the title game.
And yet, the soccer bashers will focus only on the diving. No matter how exciting a game may be, they remember only the aspects that help their cause. I cringe after each dive not only because it taints the match (or worse, decides it), but because I can picture the soccer bashers patting themselves on the back and yelling “told you so” at their televisions.
As long as it keeps working, diving will be part of the game. That’s good news for the Zubaz generation. Considering ratings for this World Cup are up 92 percent–not to mention a $98 million soccer stadium just opened in Bridgeview–the anti-soccer argument needs all the help it can get.
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larroyave@tribune.com
