Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Eduardo Diving Farse

UEFA bans Eduardo for 2 Champions League matches - Soccer - SI.com

Some initial thoughts:
1) He dove. For real. Like seriously dove.

2) I do not buy Arsene Wenger's "he broke his leg so he's avoiding contact" argument. Eduardo fears contact because of a bad past experience like I fear putting 10 tablespoons of Sriracha hot sauce on my late-night drunk-food veggie burger. No matter how many times I get burned in the morning, come next Friday, we all know I'll be right back at it.



3) I DO buy AW's argument about consistency in application of the rules.

Was Eduardo's dive worse than all the other dives in ECL matches this year?
It wasn't.

Does UEFA think that this will deter diving?
It won't.

Is UEFA going to revisit things like Messi's headbutt (AW's example) or, say... Cristiano Ronaldo's career?
They won't.



That said, an enemy of my enemy is friend, I suppose. So here's to you Scottish FA, for arguing in favor of video review of diving. Your gritty and inelegant style of football, which warms this American's heart, would benefit greatly from de-pansy-fication of soccer.

Finally, will the Scottish FA continue this noble crusade, proving that this wasn't a one-time political maneuver to give sniffling Celtic a consolation prize after getting stormed by the Gunners? (They got stormed. Like seriously stormed.)
They won't.


***Update:
The times posts a great article about just how silly UEFA has been on the Eduardo situation. While the journalist likes UEFA's "two more referees plan," which is -50 life points, he does present some good arguments and advance this debate.
Eduardo ban the worst case of Uefa bungling, says Patrick Barclay

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