Well done, Harry!

[Copps is Magic]

You mean when has a defender ever put up a high boot, or pulled on another players shirt, or elbowed/punched a player without the opposition player falling to the floor? You can do your own research if the remit is that wide.

Is there a general point you are trying to make?

[Bentley Bullet]

Yes. My point is that a player HAS to exaggerate that he has been fouled, by going to ground, ESPECIALLY an attacking player in the penalty area, otherwise the infringement will more than likely be overlooked.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Alright, attacking player plays ball through to striker. He gets a touch, but dopey defender comes across and takes both ball and player - what are you giving?

Is the striker wrong, in that instance, to go down looking for a penalty/free-kick?

Another situation. Bad tackle goes in and two players square up? One makes a movement of his head towards the other, who goes to ground? Who's in the wrong?

Aha, tactic No.2 in avoiding answering the question that you were asked - ask a question in response.

I'm still waiting to hear your answer - you were the one with the big opinion, not me or anybody else.

[Glyn_Wigley]

I don't understand why you're being so shy with your opinion now, earlier in the thread you were very definite that exaggeration should be allowed to go scot free in a game. You then said it depends upon the referee - which tells us that you acknowledge that there is defining line between exaggeration that is sporting and that is unsporting behaviour...and then you keep on refusing to tell us where that line is drawn IN YOUR OPINION! You don't need to watch a video to tell us what defines the difference!

[bobjimwilly]

Whether or not a player gets away with it or profits from it, it's still cheating. And well done on the trolling Rigo; you especially bored tonight?

[bpoolrover]

To be fair to rigo many a rovers player has exaggerated a little pull on his shirt in the area to get a penalty and not once have I seen a fan complain

[Copps is Magic]

Not heard of Lewis Guy then?

[Sammy Chung was King]

Play the game like a man, if you can stay on your feet, never go down trying to cheat your fellow players, or try to get anybody sent off, otherwise you deserve any criticism you get.
Just because most people are doing it, it doesn't mean you as a player have to follow. Until they take a strong line on this, and players have self discipline, then the game will continue not being quite as good as it could be.
Any of you who learn young kids to play, if you see this please send them off the field!.

[idler]

The actions that you you are lauding Rigo are the exact ones that are killing my love and enthusiasm for the game. Where is the skill in the wrestling match we now see in every penalty area at corners and free kicks?
I hope that you are just trolling because if I had the same views on spectators and players in a sport as yours I would feel hypocritical making a living from it.

[ravenrover]

How many refs fell for Vardy's trick of running across/into a player in the box to get the penalty?

[NickDRFC]

Is Rigoglioso a journalist? Could someone point me in the direction of some articles he has written, I'd be interested to read them.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm not sure what Rigo is these days, but if he really wants to write about sport, I'd suggest he spends some time reading the Master of the art: Simon Barnes.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/sport-is-a-fairytale-factory-as-leicester-city-remind-us/


And in particular THIS.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/this-could-be-the-year-that-sport-starts-to-die/

You go and embrace the cynicism Rigo. You tell yourself that winning is all and everything and anything that gets you the win and the money is acceptable. You're from the Murdoch generation. But It's not always been like that and it won't always be like that. Leave it to a real writer about sport to point that out.

[Donnywolf]

I'm guessing this appearance on the forum is part of his journalistic learning.

This module is entitled :-

"Spout blatantly contentious crap to stimulate a response in the hope that someone's response contains a quote you can take out of context and use to create a non story"

Must be on apprenticeship at Doncaster Free Press !

[Donnywolf]

That's cheating Rigo.  To justify anything else is purely wrong.

"An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment"

... and leads to even worse behaviour in the long term. Its a slippery slope and it spreads to kids after they watch Didier Drogba and Diego Costa - the first a positive brick outhouse - falling down at the merest touch and rolling over and over

Its a plague on the game and they are playacting aka cheating to gain advantage - and what it also does is make a hard job for Officials even harder. I used to be hyper critical of Refs (still am if you read Rate the Ref) but ffs what chance to they stand with all this conniving to win fouls - to steal yards - to get opponents sent off - to get Penalties.

Its obscene and unfortunately the Genie is out of the Bottle and can never be truly put back. It could be helped a bit if Managers themselves helped by clamping down on their Players but I for one will not be holding my breath. It is behaviour I HATE and certain teams who have come to KM recently made my blood boil with their attempts to "cheat" from the off Portsmouth MK Dons Notts County Shrewsbury and others and I end up hoping they don't prosper.

[Chris Black come back]

I'm not sure what Rigo is these days, but if he really wants to write about sport, I'd suggest he spends some time reading the Master of the art: Simon Barnes.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/sport-is-a-fairytale-factory-as-leicester-city-remind-us/


And in particular THIS.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/this-could-be-the-year-that-sport-starts-to-die/

You go and embrace the cynicism Rigo. You tell yourself that winning is all and everything and anything that gets you the win and the money is acceptable. You're from the Murdoch generation. But It's not always been like that and it won't always be like that. Leave it to a real writer about sport to point that out.

Equally insightful is David Conn in Guardian pointing out that Leicester are cheats who cheated financially to get out of the Championship and were cheating when they sent us down, using players that they cheated the rules to acquire and maintain. Cheats.

[The Red Baron]

The only thing I'd really quibble with in that Simon Barnes article is when he said rowing has no entertainment value. I'm no oarsman but whenever it's on at the Olympics, I'm gripped by it.

[Wiltshire Exile]

It's win at all costs and you do what you have to do to become a winner.

Really? So deliberately inflicting a serious injury on an opponent to gain an advantage/win a match is acceptable? Tell me you're not serious.
I'm beginning to wish that I had never started this thread, if this is the level to which some people have fallen.

[BillyStubbsTears]

If we needed a win to stay up and we went in front through a goal by some d**khead like Forrester f**king about, and the manager refused to instruct the players to allow an equaliser, I would disown the club immediately and never watch another match.

It's not allabout winning. If it becomes so to that extent, then you have lost your moral compass and sense of proportion.

Which, of course, you know full well, you little tinker.

[Wiltshire Exile]

I'm not sure what Rigo is these days, but if he really wants to write about sport, I'd suggest he spends some time reading the Master of the art: Simon Barnes.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/sport-is-a-fairytale-factory-as-leicester-city-remind-us/


And in particular THIS.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/this-could-be-the-year-that-sport-starts-to-die/

You go and embrace the cynicism Rigo. You tell yourself that winning is all and everything and anything that gets you the win and the money is acceptable. You're from the Murdoch generation. But It's not always been like that and it won't always be like that. Leave it to a real writer about sport to point that out.

Two brilliant articles; very well worth reading.

[Nudga]

Is Rigoglioso a journalist? Could someone point me in the direction of some articles he has written, I'd be interested to read them.

You'll find me in PR in a non-football environment.

What's your job, given your big interest?

Public Relations? If so, not doing a great job on here lately with your "you don't know football like I do" attitude.

[IDM]

Alright, attacking player plays ball through to striker. He gets a touch, but dopey defender comes across and takes both ball and player - what are you giving?

Is the striker wrong, in that instance, to go down looking for a penalty/free-kick?

Another situation. Bad tackle goes in and two players square up? One makes a movement of his head towards the other, who goes to ground? Who's in the wrong?

Aha, tactic No.2 in avoiding answering the question that you were asked - ask a question in response.

I'm still waiting to hear your answer - you were the one with the big opinion, not me or anybody else.

I've said already it completely depends on how the referee interprets it (or if he gets a good view of the incident) and also that when a player exaggerates a situation, there's usually something which has allowed him to do it.

If you give me a video of an incident, I'll tell you what I think the outcome should be.

Here you go, THE classic Rivaldo vs Turkey..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiW0IPrv1Ro

Justify that!!!!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go on then Rigo. I can't help biting.

So, in the analogy that we talked about earlier, if your team (screw your eyes up, think hard and imagine you had one) won promotion or avoided relegation through a goal like Forrester's against Bury, would you celebrate? 

And what would you be celebrating?

[IDM]

Alright, attacking player plays ball through to striker. He gets a touch, but dopey defender comes across and takes both ball and player - what are you giving?

Is the striker wrong, in that instance, to go down looking for a penalty/free-kick?

Another situation. Bad tackle goes in and two players square up? One makes a movement of his head towards the other, who goes to ground? Who's in the wrong?

Aha, tactic No.2 in avoiding answering the question that you were asked - ask a question in response.

I'm still waiting to hear your answer - you were the one with the big opinion, not me or anybody else.

I've said already it completely depends on how the referee interprets it (or if he gets a good view of the incident) and also that when a player exaggerates a situation, there's usually something which has allowed him to do it.

If you give me a video of an incident, I'll tell you what I think the outcome should be.

Here you go, THE classic Rivaldo vs Turkey..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiW0IPrv1Ro

Justify that!!!!

He saw an opportunity, took it, and if I remember correctly his team won the game.

He'd have got away with it properly in the lower leagues where there aren't cameras all over the place.

If you want to play the blame game, blame the officials.

Are you for real???  So they won the game that makes it right???

If Rivaldo hadn't blatantly cheated like he did, the officials wouldn't have been to blame either!! That they missed it is bad enough, but Rivaldo was the cause.

And in the lower leagues the opposition player would have probably retaliated to Rivaldo and got a red card for chinning the cheating Kitson.

FIFA should have retrospectively punished Rivaldo - did they?

You asked for video evidence and I supplied a biggy - yet you still implied that this sort of thing was OK because the cheat's team won and the ref didn't see it?

Just because these events go unpunished doesn't make them right, doesn't make them OK...

for f**ks sake man, if you think that's OK then you really are detached from what supporting football is all about!!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go on then Rigo. I can't help biting.

So, in the analogy that we talked about earlier, if your team (screw your eyes up, think hard and imagine you had one) won promotion or avoided relegation through a goal like Forrester's against Bury, would you celebrate? 

And what would you be celebrating?

I'd be celebrating staying in the division/winning promotion.

And to use a cliche, I wouldn't care less if my team did that by hook or by crook.

Then we have very different ideas about the concept of sport.

I wish you the very best of enjoyment in your involvement in sport. But, frankly, you disgust me.

[IDM]

Alright, I'll pose a counter question.

Should the defender have kicked the ball towards Rivaldo in an aggressive manner in the first place?

He's given him the excuse to try and get him into trouble.

No he shouldn't, not that I thought it was aggressive anyway.  If the referee deemed that was deliberate, then a yellow card would have sufficed, and even if a red card was technically correct, the point is, Rivaldo should not have gone down clutching his face when the ball struck him on the legs!!!!!

[IDM]

I'll give another two examples.

Suarez vs Ghana (I think) in the World Cup quarter-final. Was he wrong to deliberately punch the ball off the goal-line when it was going in, in the final minute of that game? Or was he just acting instinctively to try and help his team progress further in the competition?

In the same World Cup, Argentina vs Mexico in the Last 16. A very evenly poised game, but Argentina go 1-0 up on the stroke of half-time. However, the TV replay is shown on the big screen in the stadium - and it proves the goal is offside. Mexico's players go nuts, but should Argentina let Mexico equalise (because the referee can't use video technology - i.e. the big screen) to make his decision?

The Suarez one - I could argue he was taking one for the team.  Did he try and avoid getting a red card?  did he try and con the ref??  No he didn't - he acted in a way that was correctly dealt with under the rules by the officials. 

What was distasteful was Suarez's public celebrations after Uruguay won the penalty shoot out.

Years ago playing for my primary school team, the opposition had scored directly from a corner.  The ref, their coach, said "don't worry, he won't do that again."  Sure enough a few minutes later, he does it again, and this time I tip it over the bar - a great save but I am not the GK.  I knew I would concede a penalty but that could potentially be saved or missed (this was before the days of a red card for such) but no one thought I was cheating.  I knew the offence and the punishment.

So did Suarez.

Your second example - if the officials missed it then that's tough, it happens all the time - the officials missed the elbow to the head that Butler got in the immediate lead up to the goal Bradford scored at the KM this season.  The Argentinians didn't deliberately score knowing it was offside, did they? 

In this case the officials made a mistake.  Big screen replays are not supposed to show contentious decisions.  So no, they should not let them equalise.

[idler]

The bottom line is Rigo that I don't want to live in a world populated by people that shera your views. You might be trolling but come across as a right saddo.
Cheating in football is like a QC getting a rapist off on a technicality knowing that he is guilty as sin. He then pockets the fee not caring if he will reoffend. You might be happy to live in and watch sport in that world but I don't want to be sat next to you.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Why not just let them go on to the field and beat each other with baseball bats right from kick-off? That's got about as much to do with the game of football.

[IDM]

Kitson and the ref?

One of the fascinations of football is the human factors.  Refs f**k up, and when it is against us it is very frustrating, so sometimes cheating players get away with it.  I was as angry as anyone during that Pompey game, but afterwards, by the time I was 20 minutes down the A1, I was more concerned with other matters in my life.

That ball boy example, its pretty poor form and I don't condone it, nor a player going down easy to win a game.  It takes the gloss off a victory and no, it doesn't feel as good if it happens that way.

Football has its ups and downs, and many many injustices.  I accept they happen, doesn't mean I think they are right if my team benefits.

Look at Leicester away on May 14.  A dodgy penalty and we lose the game, where a draw keeps us up.  But that one injustice wasn't why we went down, it was not being good enough over the whole season.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Personally, I'd put Polonium in the half time tea and put Rohypnol in the away team's magic sponge.

If it'd gain an advantage, why not?

See, the diving and simulation thing. There is an over-riding determinant for me. It's not about winning at all cost. It's about having some f**king self-respect as an adult.