Bale

[humanbeingincroydon]

It says a lot that rival fans keep throwing Klinsmann or Ginola at us when we criticise their teams of diving - as neither of them have played for us in the last ten years.

And that's nothing when you consider the list of divers at some clubs...
Arsenal: Bergkamp, Pires, Overmars, Cashley, Henry, van Persie, Lehmann, Walcott
Chelsea: Drogba, Torres, Lampard, Cashley, Malouda, Ballack, Hazard, Robben
Man Utd: Rooney, Scholes, Beckham, Ronaldo, van Nistelrooy, Wellbeck, Young, Nani
Liverpool: Owen, Torres, Gerrard, Suarez, Kuyt, Baros
Newcastle: Shearer, Asprilla, Owen, Ginola

People try to say it;s part of the modern game, but it's been part of the game at some clubs more than others.

 

[remembercolinlee]

YV...

My point in posting this was not to look unbiased but simply to say that
a) it's embarrassing
and
b) it'll cost us when we don't get a nailed on penalty or free kick in a good position when he is genuinely hacked down (like Suarez)

I did say that I know he has had 2 bad injuries in the past but I don't think he did himself or the team any favours yesterday.
I agree that there are bad tackles that should be clamped down on but diving is an issue.

It ain't new as I remember divers in the 1970's (Rodney Marsh, Francis Lee etc.) but it is something we've slaughtered the likes of Gerrard; Owen; Young; Cole; Droga; Walcott etc. for doing and I do not like seeing a spurs player doing it.

 

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]

b) was happening frequently to Bale before he grew tired of incompetent refs

 

[notsosmartspur]

If Bale had got up quicker and explained himself, if it was a 'jump out of the way' action, it would have been less of an incident. Continuing to lay prostrate for some amount of seconds did not help at all, that made it look like he may have been waiting for a ref decision. A statement after the game to this effect again may have helped diffuse it. That fact is neither happened, so it looks poor on Bale's part imo.

 

[No Kane No Gain]

If Bale had got up quicker and explained himself, if it was a 'jump out of the way' action, it would have been less of an incident. Continuing to lay prostrate for some amount of seconds did not help at all, that made it look like he may have been waiting for a ref decision. A statement after the game to this effect again may have helped diffuse it. That fact is neither happened, so it looks poor on Bale's part imo.

If I'd just ran as fast as Bale I'd probably need smelling salts, a ciggie and at least 10 minutes before I could get up

 

[Billy The Spur]

I wish Bale wouldnt dive, but in his defence if it means he avoids a bad tackle and a long term injury then he can dive all he wants in my opinion. I dont want to see him turning into another Suarez or Gerrard, Suarez rolls around and falls over every time he is tackled and even when somebody makes a 100% clean tackle against him and is by far the worst culprit around at the moment.

Diving is rife throughout the PL unfortunately, Ashley Young and Welbeck, spring to mind and of course we have had the Drogbas, Pires, Eduardo, Reyes etc etc

 

[notsosmartspur]

If I'd just ran as fast as Bale I'd probably need smelling salts, a ciggie and at least 10 minutes before I could get up

I've read everything here mate, and your breakdown of the clip is not unreasonable, perfectly feasible in fact, but Bale's actions after it are what is damning to me. I'm not wishing to change anyones view here, but 'overall', not just the clip, it looks like the worst of the two scenarios.

 

[totsfan]

Bale was avoiding getting injured,not diving,he would of appealed for a foul overwise, as he does when he is unfairly brought down.

 

[RRich]

In certain matches it appears the opposing manager's tactics are 'take the monkey boy out'. He gets no protection. If he suffers a long term injury it is his career on the line. If he makes more of a challenge than it is, I can't blame him if he gets an opposing player sent off. Do or Die.

 

[Boss]

In certain matches it appears the opposing manager's tactics are 'take the monkey boy out'. He gets no protection. If he suffers a long term injury it is his career on the line. If he makes more of a challenge than it is, I can't blame him if he gets an opposing player sent off. Do or Die.

I can't say i'm completely convinced by this avoiding injury, Lennon never became known as a diver but I guess no one could catch him!...I understand Bale must be worried if he sees a defender coming at him with studs showing, but the danger is the diving becomes the norm, and if any player goes near him, bale will go down, and that is cheating.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

I can't say i'm completely convinced by this avoiding injury, Lennon never became known as a diver but I guess no one could catch him!...I understand Bale must be worried if he sees a defender coming at him with studs showing, but the danger is the diving becomes the norm, and if any player goes near him, bale will go down, and that is cheating.

If he was worried about injury, he'd jump every time Charlie Adam was within ten feet of him - there's a couple of well-documented cases for him doing this already.

 

[redwhiteandermblue]

I don't really understand why one kind of cheating, diving, is considered so much worse than other kinds of cheating, like deliberate fouling and shirt pulling. Aren't they all cheating? Granted, I'm American, and Americans consider cheating to help your team honorable (it's only cheating in an individual sports that's held in contempt).

 

[NSIS]

If he was worried about injury, he'd jump every time Charlie Adam was within ten feet of him - there's a couple of well-documented cases for him doing this already.

With very good reason! That scumbag tried, on more than on occasion, to do him serious injury. Why something is not done about him & his ilk, only the spineless idiots who run the game know.

 

[lennypops]

How anyone can possibly defend that blatant, clear, obvious, nailed-on dive from Bale is absolutely beyond me. He's trying to avoid injury?! What?! Guzan is not sliding in, is not committed to anything. And the evidence that Bale is not diving?

1) He does not appeal
2) He can't possibly hurdle the challenge* because both of his feet are off the ground when he touches the ball so therefore has to fall in a way whereby it looks like his left leg is taken out.

Let's deal with each of these.

1) Divers do not always appeal. They might even think it looks better when they don't. Plus, since the expected contact did not happen and Bale could see that Guzan actually withdrew his leg he realised that his attempts to make it look like contact from Guzan had taken him out had failed. Bale himself would have instantly known that Guzan knew he dived, all the nearby players knew and the Villa fans in that corner knew. Diving is very common in the game now but you've got to have some ****ing cheek to keep the pretense going under those circumstances. Bale, thankfully, is not quite such a titanic ****er.

2) Whilst I barely know how to address this argument all I can say is: Have you ever played football? Indeed, have you ever run anywhere? Ever? Because launching yourself, face-first, at the ground as you decide to pull your leg to one side and not even try to get it to do it's job (keeping you upright and preventing you from falling on your face the whole time) is not the way to honestly try to avoid getting clattered. It's called "hurdling a challenge" because it involves hurdling. Bale fell. Over. Badly. And what's more it's called "hurdling" cos you're hurdling over something.
Oh sorry - I forgot - he was not hurdling because he couldn't hurdle. Cos both his feet were off the ground. So then I have to wonder "Why would he have both his feet off the ground as he goes to touch that ball, why (when he can see the opposition goalie coming towards him) would he possibly put himself in such an unstable position where he cannot even have good control of the ball, never mind good control of his legs. And the answer? Guess what. He was getting ready for the contact he thought was coming his way and he had decided early on that he was going down. In a dive.

Bale expected contact so went down. When there was no contact and there was an entire corner (of a very quiet WHL yesterday) shouting at him that he cheated he didn't press the point.

This whole "there was contact" bullshit has led to players anticipating contact and going down when (if) it arrives. Pundits and managers condone this behaviour every week. And it means that players like Bale dive.

It really pisses off everyone in football and could so easily be stamped out. Seriously - if you could watch endless hours of real people playing football genuinely and with no attempts at fooling people you would see what sort of "contact" really leads to what sort of result. The world of professional football seems to involve different laws of physics to everywhere else.

Anyone who is not familiar with football thinks that diving (like Bale did yesterday) is pathetic, ridiculous and about as unsporting as you can get. And they're right - it's embarrassing.


* Er - the challenge that did not exist and never posed any physical threat to him at all. Since it did not exist.

 

[lennypops]

Sorry that was so long. But people trying to somehow excuse/explain that dive really need to look at themselves. Just cos professional football is a lying world of snakes and greed doesn't mean that us normal people should descend to their level. Rather, we should slate these behaviours loudly and in public as often as possible.

 

[NSIS]

No, he shouldn't do it. However, I would repeat the point that there are far more serious offences going unpunished, or relatively unpunished, in the game.

 

[vimhawk]

No, he shouldn't do it. However, I would repeat the point that there are far more serious offences going unpunished, or relatively unpunished, in the game.

Exactly... but you can be sure that the sports "journalists" will see no difference between what he has done and Suarez.

Of course I'd rather he didn't, so I think it would be very good PR if he made a point of hurdling someone's challenge in the next match, just to emphasise he is not a diver. I would also like someone to dish out the same punishment to CA as he has given out to Bale. That part probably certainly hasn't been emphasised enough by the media who have classed all this type of play acting as the same.

 

[bigsmithy9]

I was watching our new Belgian defender (I'll get used to that name..one day!).Seems like we've got two Bales running down the left wing sometimes.
Also,sometimes when you hit the turf,it can shake you up a bit and you have to lay there for a bit to get yourself together.
Ask Ronaldo.He hit the turf after trying a flash scissor kick,missing the ball and possibly dislocating his shoulder.

 

[alwaysright]

He didn't move out the way though did he... He dived and swung his left leg inwards to make it look like he'd been tripped, admittedly he didn't make a claim for a foul, probably because he knew how stupid it looked.

Moving out the way would have been either side stepping Guzan (at speed it may have been hard granted) or jumping over Guzan's swinging leg when he hit the ball.

please look at the video - you'll see that Bale tries to get his left leg out of the way - and he wasn't going to move it in the direction of the keeper was he ? - and at his sort of speed it is a fair bet that any sudden lateral movement will result in a loss of stability ( you can call it a dive if you like ) - you can replicate the manoeuvre - see if you don't fall !
ps - thank you Yid V.

To put a slightly more technical slant on the issue - Bale's manoeuvre was similar to a motorcyclist 'dropping' his bike just before an inevitable collision occurs with the car that is coming out of a junction to his left hand side - it is a move that ensures minimum injury to the rider. Admittedly there are no machines involved in the match - but if you swap Bale for the bike and consider the goalkeeper to be the car you'll get my point - and ask any experienced motorcyclist - he'll tell you that sometimes you have to sacrifice the bike.

 

[lennypops]

No, he shouldn't do it. However, I would repeat the point that there are far more serious offences going unpunished, or relatively unpunished, in the game.

Yeah - thuggery and malicious tackles are bad too. And maybe on a case-for-case basis an individual act of violence or an individual leg-breaking tackle is worse than any individual act of diving. But as something that is undermining the game as a whole in a really pernicious way I think that diving is the greater problem. It is hugely on the increase (whilst physical violence is on the decrease) and has a really bad effect on the game as a whole. Plus it makes referees' jobs so much more difficult when most of the players on the pitch are happy to go down when they expect contact. And thirdly the culture of stimulation spread beyond diving. Anyone remember Ibrahimovic (?) about ten years ago falling to the ground when someone touched his face? And he was mocked and villified for it? well that happened this summer in a game and all the pundits said was "You can't raise your hand there - he had to go" and were sympathetic with the guy rolling around like he had no choice!

But anyway - even if you don't think that diving is the number one problem with professional football games you've got to agree that it's one of the big problems haven't you? And what's more, unlike many of the other problems it has a simple solution - long bans as soon as video evidence proves a clear dive.

Just cos you can't deal with what you think is the number one problem does not mean to say that you should not deal with one that is slightly lower down the list.

And as for Alwaysright's point about replicating the manouvre "and see if you don't fall": well yeah - of course. It's called diving. It's a thing you do with your body to make it so you fall over. And as for the motorcycle analogy...Er I just don't swallow it.

Change the shirt that Bale is wearing into one with red torso and white sleeves and I bet most of those defending Bale now would not be bending over backwards justifying his every tiny movement in that dive. Or why he moved which leg when and what might have been going through his mind. And how no-one else can possibly know what Bale was thinking. They'd be thinking one very simple, true thought and there would be no doubt in their minds: dive.