No team does it like Barca do.
Also, it doesn't make Barca any less disgusting. At least to me as a football fan.
Also, it doesn't make Barca any less disgusting. At least to me as a football fan.
Was reading this article/column that puts alot of this hoopla to good perspective, and I like his part about the diving, and the insane overdrawn melodrama about it (like its a whole new thing in football, never done before), I recommend reading it all, but quoting that part for convenience:
Diving:
Yes, diving. Good. Cheating is cultural. One of the most striking things about the reaction to this series of matches -- and in particular, the semifinal first leg -- is the colossal amount of attention trained on the playacting from Barcelona's players. Real Madrid even went so far as to denounce Barcelona's "premeditated anti-sporting behavior" to UEFA. Like no one ever dived before, right?
Er, right.
In some countries there has long been an obsession with diving and exaggerating as the worst thing in soccer. Worse, for some reason, than deliberately kicking someone even though a dive will never end a player's career. But not in Spain. For the English to be so critical of Barça's playacting, especially as many had not seen the context-setting Copa del Rey final, was normal. For Spain to follow suit was entirely new.
In Spain, diving has tended to be tolerated at worse, celebrated at best. Players are commended for "provoking" penalties, free kicks and cards. Soccer, we're constantly told, is a game for the streetwise. Then there is a more "honest" strand to the argument: why should a player stay up if he has been fouled? Why should you aid an aggressive opponent's approach by not denouncing it with a dive? (And that, incidentally, is the conclusion at which Barcelona arrived after the Cup final). Besides, even if a player cheats, he is not blamed: the referee is. The man who falls into the trap is guilty, not the man who lays it.
No one in Spain ever complained about diving, still less launched a crusade against it. Now they have. Madrid's protests about the theatrics of Pedro, Sergio Busquets, Dani Alves, and, later, Javier Mascherano were cynical and one-sided while the pitch, volume and consistency of the complaints was hard on your ears. The huge amount of noise ignored the dives of Real's Ronaldo or Angel Di María, the man who has "provoked" more penalties in the league than anyone else. But at least it has got this particular form of cheating on the Spanish agenda at last.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...05/clasico.aftermath/index.html#ixzz1LWH3N7Hv
