So what is it that people have a problem with Robben about exactly?

[Berni]

Is it the fact that he dives or the fact that he dives in such an exaggerated manner that bothers us? Or is it simply that he dives and plays for club teams that we don't like?

After all, every footballer will dive (or exaggerate a reaction)in the right circumstances. Vieira, for instance, used to scream like he'd been shot whenever he wanted a free kick. Pires dived, Eduardo dived, Eboue dived to get us that free kick in the CL final - everyone dives.

The issue is not diving, the issue is refereeing. Players will do whatever is necessary (and - more importantly - whatever they are allowed to get away with) to win an advantage. Expecting them to do otherwise is naive and ridiculous. It is up to the officials to police it better - even through use of video replay if necessary. However, to vilify individual players for doing at a decisive moment what they all do as a matter of course is ludicrous.

[Monty91]

seek to gain an unfair advantage but it takes a different mentality to claim a throw in you know was not yours and to dive. In short, the latter makes you more of a **** than the former and therefore the more you dive the bigger the **** you are.

Ergo, Robben is pretty much the biggest **** in football.

[71 Guns - channeling the spirit of Mr Hat]

[Mo Britain less Europe]

fruits of his cheating, he pretends he's an honest guy. He paled for Chelsea. He plays with Van Rapist.

[redgunamo]

[Luis Anaconda]

on the pitch anyway. I'm more irritated by his constantly cutting inside and shooting than his diving tbh

[Curly]

[The Tony]

http://www.whitehousepost.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Fosters-Paddle-of-Rebuke-%E2%80%94%C2%A0Adam-Eve-+-Tim-Bullock-at-Hungry-Man-+-John-Smith-at-the-Whitehouse-Post-in-London-480x270.png

[Berni]

The only difference lies in their respective consequences. The latter is a much better reason to cheat than the former as you can get a penalty or an opponent sent off for it. That may be morally reprehensible, but it is of much greater value for your team (who are your first responsibility). Equally, though, this reward contains a much higher risk - no-one ever got a yellow card for claiming a throw in, after all. This shouldering of risk makes the diver if anything more noble than the claimer of throw-ins.

[Mo Britain less Europe]

successfully argued that cheating is an intrinsic part of his game.

[Classic Jorge]

I've no problem with players diving but he does almost seem like he deliberately sets out to do it rather than go round a man.

My daughter hates him and calls him 'Badman Baldy', I'll ask her when I get back later

[slow&low]

and usually a ****.

At this championship I quite like him tough. :cloud9:

[PSRB]

[71 Guns - channeling the spirit of Mr Hat]

https://d2dddkdru4ec2z.cloudfront.net/petitions/images/15091/hero/Michael-Gove.jpg.pagespeed.ce.0Dv96BPT6T.jpg?1387114758

[Ashberto]

Most players do the odd dive now and again. Those who do it constantly like Robben, Gerard and Suarez are in a different category.

[Classic Jorge]

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1353541/thumbs/o-MICHAEL-GOVE-facebook.jpg

[slow&low]

[Monty91]

The greater the influence that an act of cheating has on a match, the more the integrity of the sport is eroded. If you willfully and frequently erode the integrity of your sport with no apparent regard, that makes you a **** :shrug:

[slow&low]

:hehe:

[Berni]

From shirt pulling and shoving in the box, through shielding the ball into touch by obstructing a an opponent, to claiming throw ins you know aren't yours and all the myriad tricks of the trade, cheating is nodded at and even encouraged in the game. So what makes diving different?

[Monty91]

has shown there is still plenty to love about football :hide:

[71 Guns - channeling the spirit of Mr Hat]

http://www.theworldthroughwoodeneyes.co.uk/wpimages/Pob02.jpg

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

offenders when we as fans know they are doing it all the time, surely? It is the fact that they get away with it time and again that encourages them to carry on doing it. The refs are there to enforce the laws of the game. If those laws are being repeatedly and obviously flouted by certain known individuals, it is their fault.

[71 Guns - channeling the spirit of Mr Hat]

[Berni]

The two are not comparable. And I'm left utterly cold by discussions of integrity, since I believe cheating is integral to football.

[Herbette Chapman - aged 15]

rubber-faced, ugly dutch ****. Isn't that enough?

[redgunamo]

Also no homo.

[Monty91]

what is a dive and what is exaggerating contact and what is forcing contact, etc etc, and this alone puts a greater onus on players not to do it. Or at least, they are free to do it, but if they do, we are free to consider them a ****.

[slow&low]

Robben actually deserved at least 1, maybe 2 penalties earlier on, but the dive got rewarded. :shrug: Football needs video reffing as soon as possible to get some lost reliability back.

[Curly]

[redgunamo]

Yet we know this is not the case, so in what way does it negate a great innings or a great goal, for instance?

[Ashberto]

[Berni]

Without all the replays and camera angles, we'd simply have to do what we used to do and take the ref's word for it whether we liked it or not. I doubt diving is any more prevalent now than in the past - it's just more easily identified after the event.

[Monty91]

If footballers didn't cheat, the game would die?

Interestingly, self-regulation is shown to work perfectly well in school playgrounds the world over, where the players themselves have to referee the games. Of course, this system works because if you claim a ball that clearly went over your jumper (i.e. the 'post') was a goal then you know your opponents will do the same the next time they hit the 'post'.

[Berni]

[Monty91]

popular.

[Berni]

South Africa, is it?

[Ashberto]

'what makes biting so different from all the other, perhaps more dangerous fouls'?

It is a taboo, a crossed line of cheatiness. We can spend as long as you like analysing why, but that's what it boils down to.

[Mo Britain less Europe]

game, and goes unpunished, the game suffers. Successful cheating spawns a host of imitators.

Again, there is a reason why punishment for repeat offenders - "three strikes and you're out" and the like - exists. The idea that if someone is committing crimes regularly the punishment has to become more severe to discourage it.

[PSRB]

some also view Sharapova's excessive screaming after every shot is a form of cheating

[Berni]

feeling that your team has been cheated (or that you've gleefully got away with having cheated yourself) is part of the whole football supporting experience. Football is cutthroat, amoral and largely red in tooth and claw and those things are essentially part of the attraction.

Fans like the fact that refs are clueless stooges constantly being hoodwinked by the faster and more savvy players. It's part of the pantomime. Robben's just the villain twirling his figurative moustache.

[redgunamo]

At least in the sense that you're not supposed to lose.

Or do you mean only "unofficial" match-fixing.

[Ashberto]

Cheating on line calls therefore possible, in the same way as your jumpery goalpost.

[Berni]

castigating those who successfully get away with it. They don't care - they've usually got lots of money and medals to console them.

[Luis Anaconda]

[PSRB]

[redgunamo]

various governing bodies trying to pay their bills and cover their costs. That's fair enough, I think.

[Berni]

to start with.

[Monty91]

There is no reason why if endemic diving was stamped out the game would suffer. In fact, it may force the media to focus more on the sport, rather than the pantomime, and encourage fans to do the same.

[redgunamo]

The best will still end up winning.

[redgunamo]

The panto is the reason football is the biggest sport.

[Berni]

tends to focus more on controversy than on the technical aspects of the game and this is a formula that seems to have worked for people like Sky Sports, TalkSport et al.

The football authorities know this. They know that without controversy, their product would be nowhere near as popular as it is. This is why they're so resistant to reforms that would stamp out various forms of cheating.

[Monty91]

that are entirely absent of flagrant diving. This alone shows that football fans are not entirely in thrall to the pantomine element of the sport.

Indeed, football provides ample pantomime even without cheating. The sheer human drama of who will win is enough to make it a brilliant sport - as much if not more than the controversy.

[Ben.]

[redgunamo]

[redgunamo]

[7evens]

The sneaky clever ******* will leave a trailing leg and adapt the trip and fall in one skillful rolling movement.
This c**t seems to think that by grossly exaggerating a challenge by performing a star jump, or catapulting his limbs in all directions that he can get a decision.

c**t, with very poor execution of the art..

[Ashberto]

[Berni]

cheating whatsoever - be it handball, fouling, timewasting, etc, etc, etc).

However, what interests me is that you seem suddenly to have developed a faith in your fellow football fans' love of the game itself that I find surprising and touching. :hehe:

You really think the mouth-breathers who call TalkSport and Sky Sports would just stick around for the football? Really?

[The Tony]

His ball control and change of gear is right up there with the likes of Henry in his pomp.

Just dives like a white guy.

Wouldn't see a black lad swan laking it....nope nada no chance...

[Berni]

suggests to me that what looks like ridiculous exaggeration to those of us who can watch it several times in slo-mo doesn't look that way to the referee on the ground. Perhaps exaggeration just works better?

[Monty91]

lots of challenges in the box. He gets given some, but he probably gets refused even more.

b) The pelanties he does get are usually following contact. I can't recall many times he has faked contact entirely and got given one.

[Rich]

If a home series defeat to Sri Lanka in early summer doesn't do it then what will?

[Berni]

http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article2872780.ece/alternates/s615/CS52388948TottenhamHotspur.jpg

[Hillary]

[PSRB]

[The Tony]

Besides Wellbeck isn't that sort of player...nice try

[Hillary]

[PSRB]

touch from a forward

[The Tony]

All about the Colonel innit blud

[Hillary]

However, as the ECB threw Pietersen under a bus in order to secure the Moores/Cook partnership, I can't see them sacking either for a long time to come.

[Monty91]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59-gwr0Q9po

[Ben.]

looks like he has been attacked for knowing the answer to a maths question.

[Billy Goat Sverige]

[Hillary]

[Rich]

[Ben.]

http://therepublikofmancunia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/eboue.gif

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

I am no huge fan of Mexicans so don't give two f**ks.

[redgunamo]

at those secret training camps of theirs.

Maybe they've decided that "The Seal" is more sinn'd against than sinning.

[Berni]

[Hillary]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpmmCw9fKhk

[Berni]

All I said was that their food was ****e and they were all rapists. :shrug:

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

I could add the weight of "Fact" to that statement in order to render it unarguable.

Mexico, 95 or 96. Thieving *******s. Wd Robben.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Have a word with yourself.

http://www.awimb.com/fudforum/index.php?t=tree&goto=3904 975&rid=173&S=fd9b706412c1d9ce6f4eb3c987d3db3c (http://www.awimb.com/fudforum/index.php?t=tree&goto=3904975&rid=173&S=fd9b706412c1d9ce6f4eb3c987d3db3c)

[Billy Goat Sverige]

Welcome to Arsenal Alexis #gooner

[The Tony]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

[Billy Goat Sverige]

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5ptt9_-fQI/Uu5uKmvvxsI/AAAAAAAABQU/1oY7n0NCFhY/s1600/sean_fortune_2015614_display.jpg

[Classic Jorge]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

A keeper, a right-back, a centre-back, a central midielder, a wide midfielder, a striker.

Quite the shopping list.

I can't keep up anymore, one day it is Vidal and the next Schneiderlin. Then it is Khedira. I genuinely don't know which name to get on the new shirt.

[Classic Jorge]

[Billy Goat Sverige]

And probably Aurier, but only a c**t would have a RB on the back of their shirt.

[Ben.]

Hales scored another hundred, if he doesn't come in for Cook in the ODI team they should all be thrown under a bus.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

In fact I find it most disconcerting.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

[Ben.]

get up to the box and put some effort behind it.

[Monty91]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

However I cannot help thinking he looks like a man playing football in a nappy, which is wrong, especially at this level.

[Classic Jorge]

[Bergkamp's Brain]

Or so it seems

[Ashberto]

[Peter]

:hehe:

[Classic Jorge]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

I pride myself on my open minded and patient approach to all of god's children.

[Ashberto]

Someone needs to whisper in his ear though: "Not in public, dear".

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Just the same ****e folded 4 different ways. I am not against it at all, just don't hold it in high regard.

[Ashberto]

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130717002504/gta-myths/images/thumb/b/ba/Cornholio.jpg/339px-Cornholio.jpg

[redgunamo]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

I am glad somebody else has noticed.

[Ashberto]

It was county level that it started getting a bit cùntish. District tournaments were ok.

[Classic Jorge]

CooooOOOOoOORRRRrrrrRRrrrnnnnnnNNnhoooooOOOoollLLL lllllliiii iOOOOoooooo

[Mack]

[Mack]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

I have no idea if 'county level' or an equivalent even existed here, but then you wouldn't unless you were involved.

[Alexism - Atheoist]

reaction was fine.
To answer your question, I think it's just the fact he does so so often with so much talent at his disposal. He's playing the referees rather than the game.

[Berni]

Not of that sort, thankfully. More my dad being told by a local that, if we were planning to go to mass, we should probably go to the Hook instead rather than take young boys anywhere near Fr. Fortune.

That's the thing: everyone knew. Even then. :-(

[Nicosia Gooner]