Here’s something fun you can do on your break at work today: google “Wayne Rooney dive” and watch any YouTube video. After that, try Andy Johnson dive, Ashley Young dive, and Steven Gerrard dive. In the pantheon of divers, Rooney, Young, and Gerrard are gods among men.
Now look at this stat courtesy Matt Dunn of the Daily Express:
Most pens won since 02/03: 14-Andy Johnson, 11-Young, Bent, 10-Agbonlahor, Crouch, 9-Gerrard (spot a theme)?
Did you spot the theme? Well, in case you missed it Kun Aguero would be glad to help.
Yesterday, Aguero bravely opened himself up to criticism of “racism” by claiming that English referees treat foreign players harsher than they do the local boys. Prodded by a reporter with a question about whether he thinks foreign players don’t get penalties as easily as their English counterparts, Aguero’s answer was actually more nuanced than many headlines make out:
Yes, always. It happens everywhere. There is a little bit of privilege with players who come from that country, but that is normal. We just play our game, and the referee’s job is to know who is tricking him and who is not. Here in England, there are almost as many foreign players as English players and it’s not right that some have a privilege that others don’t.
Bang on cue, a reporter (the same one who started this with his question to Kun?) asked Sir Alex Ferguson what he thought of this firestorm over Aguero’s claim that foreign players being treated differently and his response was predictable:
As a subject it is not worth going down because we have known for quite a few years there are plenty of players diving and, you have to say, particularly foreign players.
But since this was specifically a question about whether Nani should have been awarded a penalty, Ferguson went on to say that what he meant was foreign players except…
Nani is not the type to dive, he has never been that type of player.
Now google “Nani Dive”… I’ll wait.
Plenty of players dive. In fact, almost all of them. Diving is so ubiquitous in the game that next time you see a player refuse to go down in the box if it even looks they are fouled, mark your calendar. This happens so rarely that we could make that an international day of celebration: “Wayne Rooney Stayed On His Feet Day.”
And more to the point, diving is not something that only foreign players do as any simple google search shows. The English boys do it just as much as (if not more than) the others.
But the problem is that among referees once you have a reputation as a diver, you nearly have to be decapitated to win a penalty. And thanks to the press not challenging the assertions of Ferguson and helping to glorify English players versus Foreign players that reputation seems to build much quicker for a foreign player than it does for his English counterpart.
But here’s the thing I have a real problem with. The English players with a penchant for going to ground easily, don’t seem to suffer the same fate as the foreigners. Andy Johnson (remember him? used to play for Everton?) was one of the first to be accused of serial diving. And yet, he’s still the number one player on that list Matt Dunn tweeted. Ashley Young is currently one of the most egregious serial divers. He’s number two on that list.
Arsenal fans are aware of this bias acutely. After the press slaughtered Eduardo for a dive against Celtic, nothing Eduardo could do would win him a penalty. Even after Eduardo’s departure Arsenal still feel as if there’s a bias against their club as they haven’t won a penalty in the League at the Grove since April 2011.
Maybe Arsenal would win more penalties if they played Theo Walcott as a center forward and told him to stop staying on his feet like he did against Chelsea. Or maybe, just maybe sports reporters who cover the Premier League could start doing their job and challenge the assertions of managers like Fergie that foreigners are the ones who dive most and start listening to players like Kun Aguero. Rather than adding fuel to the fire.
Well old red-nose would be an authority wouldn’t he? After all he “mentored” Ronaldo and Nani of the Foreign Divers Association and currently boasts Rooney and Young in the Divers Home Division.
How about this though, via twitter:
@AFCAMDEN
Chris Foy, who Fergie wasn’t happy with at the weekend, has been demoted to League 2 for the weekends fixtures. Looks so, so corrupt. #mufc
I will be curious to see if Suarez now suffers from his reputation. Did you see him get run over by a Norwich defender on the weekend?
It has been noted elsewhere I believe that the perception that foreign players dive more in England is at least in part down to the fact that there are more foreign strikers than English ones.
So it’s not that English strikers don’t dive. It’s that they are crap.
The really sad thing is that the British media (for the most part), and the entire English game, really, are so infatuated with Fergie that the only remedy to their bias is his retirement…which can’t come soon enough. There will be no paradigm shift. It will end only when he ends.
Can you imagine if Wenger had circumspectly offered the same idea, or even the one that English players dive more than or at least as often as foreigners?
Public. Cruci. Fixion.
After all that moaning from him about the added time against the spudlings, I imagine he’s still smarting from losing the league on goal difference to City. You know deep down he’d love to do that. So now we can sing this when we play them:
You lost the league!
In Fergie time!
You lost the league in Fergie time
You lost the league to Man City
You lost the league in Fergie time
[saints go marching in]
Fergie would also like more injury time…what’s next? 5th official for timekeeping?
Any journalist that has the guts to question Fergie is blackballed. He is never asked tough questions. And I am suprised (probably cause I haven’t paid attention for as long as most of you) at the frequency of excuses and deflections he gives after a bad MU performance. His complaint about injury time on Sunday is absurd.
An extremely simplistic angle on the Fergie factor is that manure enjoy the largest numbers of supporters. They spend their pennies on a copy of the manure loving sun, a shirt, a sky subscription, a few bevvies watching a game at the juicer, maybe even a ticket for a game. At a wild guess, not painstaking research – not generally an approach on this site, the EPL is worth over a £billion+ per annum all tolled with the manure contingent a significant part of that. You keep those scumbags happy basking in glory and the dosh flows in, and as the EPL exsits purely to create wealth for the slags that own/run it it’s rotten to the core. Fergie’s retirement will not bring an end to it, you need only look at successors such as Jose Special to see the regime has every chance to flourish for years to come.
The hope I cling to, raised by an excellent post here a while ago, is that the American audience as it grows and increases financial input and therefore influence, insists on fair officiating, via technology, and unbiased media coverage.
It’s my hope that the yanks get the world it’s football back.
Well, I think that if the players who dives remain the only main focus, it can’t be rectified. I still want a referee performance judging after every matches. In that way, referee will be put aware of every decision that might be wrong or right that they might have done. On this context, I feel that referee don’t actually aware that a bias decision on local players in the name of patriotism or local clubs fanaticism is wrong. When everybody do it, it looks wrong when we don’t do it.
A bit off topic, Tim have you read Swissramble latest financial article of Arsenal? What’s your opinion on our availability to compete on the signing of Cavani or Falcao? Is the 150 millions cash reserve a fair amount to prepare for a lack of CL campaign?
Thank you Tim.
I saw that and I have to say that I’m quite surprised. I will write about this during the lull.
Props to you on finding that photo of Roo in full dive – perfect as counterpoint to SAF’s comments.What an image!
That’s why I love the Premier League. SAF can be a great source of entertainment when he says stuff like this. We all know he’s tyrant but this sounds a touch senile with this one.
the 8 minutes of overtime quote had me in stitches.
I hope the senility continues and Fergie loses it when we play ManUre. Hope we “sweep” them (sweeping = completing the double over ManUre for non-Yanks or non-NBA or MLB folks) this year.
Interesting stuff right here.
He has a nerve to call out foreign players when his team has been diving in almost every single match this season and that is without Young playing.
I can’t stand the fergie love. If refs would call the league correctly, he would not have won as much as he has. People who are not in awe of him can see it.
It is true that Arsenal have not had a pen at home in a minute but I also remember United going a whole season without a pen being called against them at home all season! and somehow even some Arsenal supporters gloss over this.