I think you are pushing it when you say a dive is when there is no contact. So if I have minimal contact against a player, he is allowed to do a Tom Daley impersonation and it is not a dive? We all know what could lead to a player falling. And that contact on Saturday could not lead to that kind of fall unless suddenly his knees and his legs were transformed into jelly.
If we are objective and condemn in our players what we readily do in others, then we would accept that Salah did not need to do what he did on Saturday. Honestly it is now too obvious and he’ll be deeply scrutinised by referees so he might as well cut it out.
I would say that refs use exactly that criteria to determine a yellow or not.
they are allowed wave away pen shout and give no explanation why.
If they said you fell over lad... then the next question from opponent is wheres the yellow ref?
If ref says. player got ball... he means you get kocked over in a tackle... if he can't say that then its either a foul or a dive surely?

), the three that stand out in recent years are Ronaldo, Suarez and Messi. There are probably more who did as much with less talent but those three stick in my mind as winners.