By Chris Wright
Let me list the reasons I hate Arjen Robben with the burning fire of one thousand imploding
suns...
1) He doesn't run, he gingerly minces.
2) He, and you may have noticed this yourselves, feigns career-ending injuries quite regularly only
to get up when it suits and keep on gingerly mincing.
Until there is a serious crackdown on diving in professional and international soccer, we'll
probably being seeing dives even more horrific than this one by Ryuji Bando in a recent AFC match
between Cerezo Osaka v Jeonbuk FC. While all sports have a certain level of gamesmanship, a certain
level of crossing the lines, the fact that players in club football, like Bando, think there is
something to be gained if they take such a blatant, horrible dive is evidence enough that football
officials need to crackdown and issue stiffer penalties for diving.
Until there is a serious crackdown on diving in professional and international soccer, we'll
probably being seeing dives even more horrific than this one by Ryuji Bando in a recent AFC match
between Cerezo Osaka v Jeonbuk FC. While all sports have a certain level of gamesmanship, a certain
level of crossing the lines, the fact that players in club football, like Bando, think there is
something to be gained if they take such a blatant, horrible dive is evidence enough that football
officials need to crackdown and issue stiffer penalties for diving.
In a recent U20 match down in South America, a Chile's Bryan Carrasco grabbed the arm of a player
for Ecuador and pulled that player's fist into his own face. Carrasco's trick work, drawing a foul
on the Ecuadorian, but Ecuador won the match 1-0.
For anyone who might have missed it, Theo Walcott had this to say after Arsenal's FA Cup third
round match against Leeds:
"I want to apologise to the managers because I actually dived. I was trying to win the
penalty.
"I had a little joke with the referee afterwards saying ‘that was my first dive, can you
tell?
Arsenal 1-1 Leeds United
Cracking cup tie this. I couldn't make the game yesterday so watched it on HyundaITV while
following the mood on Twitter. There was a fair bit of chiding for various facets of Arsenal's
display but Leeds played very well indeed, let's not forget.
