There is a bit of of a difference between the opportunistic "make the most of contact" kinda dive Ashley Young does and the create an agonising injury/invent a foul completely shtick of Suarez, or say Rivaldo against Turkey in 02.

Ah that's the classic feign injury after fouling your opponent manoeuvre there.

Haha, I think the fouled player's teammates are somehow fooled by that looking from their lack of reaction. Either that or the lunge was so late they missed it.

I think it's easy. If a slow motion replay shows there was clearly no contact, then they should be suspended.

I would also like to see 2 week suspensions for players that pretend to be badly hurt/injured from minor contact. This could be judged by a panel of independent WWE wrestlers. And make it a rule that if you act like you're seriously hurt you have to go off and can't come back on.

After their suspensions, all players convicted of diving or injury faking should have to play the rest of the season wearing a dress.

Actually, scrap the last one. If anything, the Italians would see it as an incentive to dive even more.

or the word "DIVER" emblazoned across their shirt, front and back.

And I am guessing you don't have many Italian mates.

No one genuinely likes Italians.

Why would you guess that? Was just pointing out the fact all Italians like to wear women's clothing.

Except for the women...

Not that there's anything wrong with that!! You can be as Italian as you like as far as I'm concerned.

But for Italian divers it'd be better to take away their hairbrushes.

Which reminds me of this:

Is this an English perspective, and one that trickles down under? Mmmm, I think there are a fair few italian-americans lurking on this site. I <3 Italians, their men, their food, their wine, their cars, their fashion designers, their accents...their fictional characters immortalised in TV and cinema...their footballer's tongue's.

Italians being the worst divers in football is a stereotype. The Grosso dive was closer to shitty defending then it was a terrible dive. Yes, he went down easily, but Neil has little business going down like that in the box. Poor defending.

"Poor defending justifies cheating."

Go on Krym, defend your beloved Italians now! First they want to play soccer in dresses and now they reveal this - one of their key life philosophies!!

Show me cheating. First of all, Bresciano almost wrestles Grosso to the ground after getting turned like a chump and Grosso courageously stay on his feet while stumbling. Then he fools Lucas Neil into going to ground with the slide and tries his best to jump over the hurdle but the contact was too much and he went to ground. Neil basically grabbed his feet away if you watch the replay. Australia were very rough the whole game, actually.

And how quickly we forget about the Materazzi red card. Bresciano was completely missed (in fact Materazzi took out his own player who managed to stay on his feet) but he still managed to roll for 10 or so metres. Even after having a man advantage, Australia produced absolutely no quality play and were way too conservative. They only have themselves to blame.

poor defending?, perhaps, but it was still exaggerating in order to gain a crucial penalty, similar to financial gain by deception which can result in a jail sentence in the real world.
and dom re previous post dear oh dear, your italian heritage sure does take precedence, just leave it at that.

First and only live pro football match I have seen to date was AC Milan, who won me over with their delightful performance.

However, I don't think I feel the same about diving as you do. How do you feel about strong arming, shirt grabbing and elbowing? Professional fouls are only heinous if they are aimed at inflicting injury. So that two-footed studs out tackle should get you evicted from the field, and like immediately, as should a lunge aimed at tripping people running ahead of you. But the best solution for dealing with school girl dramatics is to play on and ignore the little wanker. I say we install body temp/heart monitors on the players. This way, if they are truly in physical distress, it alerts paramedics to take action. Else you can hobble off to the sideline and wave for medical assistance, or just lie there cluttering up the field, til the end of time, if you like.


hmmm, cricket fielders 'catching' grounded balls? LBW antics?