Note: Ronaldinho is currently fulfilling international duties to play with Brazil.

I don’t think I’ve ever talked about the art of diving on the football field before, but it’s something that needs to be talked about because it’s always controversial. I don’t care what anyone says, I think it is just outright wrong and gives the game of football a bad name. Not only does it make football players look like, pardon me, pussies, it also brings heartache and anger for the opposing team to receive the shorter end of the stick. I can first hand tell you the frustrating nature of seeing a footballer take a dive when you tackle them fairly. You just want to pick up the player and slap them across the face, in order to say, get a hold of yourself!

Professionals Are Good At It

Recently, during the Chelsea vs Liverpool match which was played the other day, a pass which was going to Drogba was left by Malouda, but Liverpool defender Agger went in to challenge the ball and Malouda dived, resulting in a poor penalty decision. This was then converted by Lampard, leaving Liverpool with a undesirable 1-1 draw. Another incident that plays over and over again in Australian hearts is the match we had against Italy. In the dying stages of the match, defender Lucas Neill challenged the ball to find he had slid past the attacker Grosso and out of his way. The Italian then dived over him as to say Neill was holding him down. That is my interpretation of it. You can find the video below.

It still pains me to watch that video to this day because I honestly think we were hard done by. But you can now see the consequences of diving and the impact that has. Grosso’s dive cost Australia their place in World Cup history and people here still talk about that match to this day. On the other hand, Grosso not only put Italy through to the next round, he contributed to his country and Italy ended up winning the whole thing. It is very interesting to see that the game of football can favour those who play unjust and unfairly, like any game, but it is our job as footballer to strive to toughen up and not go down as easily as the Italians in this case.

P.S I’ve got nothing against Italians, it was just the best example I could use