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Dive or not a dive?

Arturo Alvarez (ISIphotos.com) 
                              Photo by ISIphotos.com

Unless you are a die-hard New York Red Bulls fan or a San Jose Earthquakes fan, chances are you missed their game last Saturday night, which means you probably didn't see Arturo Alvarez draw what wound up being the match-winning penalty converted by Ryan Johnson.

The play looked every bit like a dive, and one of the weaker dives in MLS in recent memory, but I will let you, the SBI readers, vote on whether you agree.

Dive, or not a dive? (video and poll after the jump):

Cast your vote here:

What's my take? After watching the full broadcast replay repeatedly, it is a pretty clear dive, with Alvarez taking a touch and a step before an invisible sniper shot him in the left leg.

What did you think? Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. He fell, and then he was conflicted about the call–embarrassed that he tripped but grateful it was called in his favor. What else is he supposed to do? The poll is bogus.

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  2. @ the 17 sec mark his left foot is stepped on which cased him to go down! Even if it is a dive thats soccer, or atleast thats what we have been told over ten times this year when the same calls were against us! Go Quakes!

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  3. that’s just bad reffing. Though, I’d like to say that flop was less a flop than it was him tripping over himself. The poll is skewed.

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  4. But, Ferri the problem I have with booking for simulation without said player appealing for a penalty is that there is a ‘gray area’ in determing whether a player was infact trying to deceive the official.

    Perfect example was Eduardo versus Celtic in Champions League qualifying…when a player is running a full speed and is touched even the slightest, How would we know whether or not they were trying to deceive the referee? This is were the officials have to earn their paycheque. By making the correct calls to begin with and eliminate talk of ‘diving’ ‘simulation’

    The combination of not being able to determine whether a player is trying to deceive the officials and the fact that Arsenal was able to prove there was contact made with the goalie using a variety of video angles is the reason his original suspension was rescinded.

    More importantly I dont think that using video footage after the fact to determine whether a player was trying to deceive an official is acceptable either. I had to watch the video 7-8 times alone just to see that his heel was stepped on/clipped.

    The simple fact that most of the posters on this page think Alvarez should be booked for ‘diving’ when he did in fact get fouled and had his heel clipped….says alot.

    How are we seriously able to determine how a person should go to ground upon being fouled?

    That answer is easy when a player is not fouled…but when fouled?

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  5. Re: E

    Just a few points: You are correct that the FIFA laws of the game do not mention “diving” and substitute “simulation.” However, there is no need for a player to appeal for a penalty or a card to be guilty of simulation. To quote the Laws, Simulation is “an attempt to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled.”

    The issue with trying to retroactively nail a player for diving is deciding whether the player went down softly or if they actively attempted to deceive the referee.

    In this case, it appears that Hall’s challenge from the side is a fair shoulder charge, but that Ubiparipovic clips Alvarez outside the box. Alvarez takes two steps after being clipped and then kicks out his own foot out. I say call the foul against Ubiparpovic, set a direct kick outside the box, and book Alvarez for his subsequent dive. Of course, this is after multiple views of the replay which the referee would not (and should not) have at his disposal.

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  6. Re: E

    Just a few points: You are correct that the FIFA laws of the game do not mention “diving” and substitute “simulation.” However, there is no need for a player to appeal for a penalty or a card to be guilty of simulation. To quote the Laws, Simulation is “an attempt to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled.”

    The issue with trying to retroactively nail a player for diving is deciding whether the player went down softly or if they actively attempted to deceive the referee.

    In this case, it appears that Hall’s challenge from the side is a fair shoulder charge, but that Ubiparipovic clips Alvarez outside the box. Alvarez takes two steps after being clipped and then kicks out his own foot out. I say call the foul against Ubiparpovic, set a direct kick outside the box, and book Alvarez for his subsequent dive. Of course, this is after multiple views of the replay which the referee would not (and should not) have at his disposal.

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  7. It was a foul, but the foul occurred outside the box. The call is a free kick from outside the box (where the foul occurred) and a yellow card to Alvarez for simulation, occurring after the foul.

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  8. Im a quake fan so lets put that out of the way. However i do want to bring up a point.

    I dont mean to sound like a jerk Ives but out of all the blatant dives that happen in this league (Moreno, Schelotto, Blanco) why is it that you bring this one up? Is it because of the fact that its what made the NYRB lose? Coincidence?

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  9. Im not sure it was a dive either way. The thing I do have to stress is that I believe the only time a player should be carded or suspended due to the suspicion of ‘diving’ is if they try to appeal for a penalty or foul. Which is SIMULATION!

    What a lot of people don’t understand is that the term ‘diving’ is not in the FIFA rulebook. ‘Simulation’ is.

    Falling to the ground “too easily” is not a punishable crime/offense in the game.

    If a player were to fall to ground in the box due to a hamstring pull or a muscle injury….Could that be falling to ground too easily? Should that player with the injury be carded or suspended? No. and No.

    Regardless of which way you slice it though the officials have to get it right.

    A player cannot be faulted for a ‘blown call’ by the officials.

    It does look from the replay that his heel was clipped by the defender further away from the goal after watching it 7-8x.

    It’s harsh to call a penalty though as the defender probably didnt mean to make contact with Alvarez’s heel and it was accidental.

    If I am the official:

    I let the play go…the ball was ahead of him although he may have been able to get it but the foul was accidental if it all(this depends on the official’s view of the play).

    In a perfect world:

    I as official… would award an indirect freekick to the Quakes inside the box…as a penalty is harsh. The clip of the heel occured inside the box! A foul inside the box is a penalty.

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  10. I agree, Moreno and Schellotto are two of the biggest divers in MLS. I was glad when the Dynamo let him go. Being a Dynamo Fan I’m somewhat discouraged at the vast amount of red and yellow cards they’ve been getting. What gives? What happend to the finesse? All is see is a bunch of hacking goin’ on and it’s showing in the results, one win out of six games. Horrible!

    Divers should be red carded all across soccer in general (European, MLS, etc.)

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  11. rb fan here…

    Way too close to call. If you go back you can see both players make some contact with his legs while he’s trying to come out from between them. Tough play, I don’t think the fall looked like an act.

    I gave Arturo the benefit of the doubt. I think the only questionable thing is where the fall was called and if it was a penalty since he fell right on the line. That’s the bigger question, imo.

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  12. Hard to tell given the subtleties of actually playing the game. It doesn’t look like a penalty, but I can’t be sure it’s a dive either. That’s the problem with disciplining divers, it’s hard to tell if they dove or legitimately lost their balance and fell.

    Anyway, why the focus on this one occurrence?

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  13. These ARE MLS refs we’re talking about. If it was an obvious foul, the play probably would have gone the other way.

    He clearly just stumbled on his own feet, however, the ref should have been in a better position to make that call than back at midfield.

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  14. How the refs could blow this call is ridiculous. Soccer needs to have a ref in viewing booth who can immediately overturn such bad calls. Alvarez should be suspended three games.

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  15. This is an easy one. Judging by the poll most people agree. Light contact in the upper body happens CONSTANTLY in this game.

    Watch this scumbag go down…he flops like someone kicked his feet out from under him, yet the only contact was well above the waist.

    There is no counterargument.

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  16. The defenders let off right before he hit the box, and thats when he chose to go flying. If there was a foul it was about 4 feet outside of the box.

    Has that ref had an eye exam recently?

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  17. It was a filthy bit of cheating by a very skilled player who is also a total scumbag. That’s shouldn’t even be in question.

    The really outrageous part was how Christopher Sullivan went through the charade of claiming that it was a legitimate penalty. Despite Sullivan’s annoying affectations (“caviar”? “Italia”?) he knows a ton about soccer, but his on-the-air worship of his favorite Latino players is amateurish and pathetic.

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  18. Foul outside the box. Ubiparipovic steps on Alvarez’s left foot with his right foot outside the box. Alvarez’s momentum carries him into the box where he falls.

    Should have been a DFK outside the box. But this is an awfully difficult call to get right.

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  19. BTW, I love all the shots of Ritchie getting irritated on the sidelines. Honestly, I love to see that kind of passion from a manager.

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  20. I think, in general, Carlito gets a really bad rap in the MLS from refs, and that because of his previous offenses, he’s not often given the rub of the green in these kind of decisions, which sucks, because I think his performance last night was great. Nevertheless, while Alvarez is guilty for being a cheat, the ref is guilty of even being duped on what was pretty poor acting to begin with. Just another example of poor refing in these parts.

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  21. I agree with alffy. There is slight contact with his left foot, but he plants his right fully and brings his left foot straight forward. You can trip a guy up pretty easily with a slight touch by tapping his foot just after he starts to bring it forward, causing it to catch on the back of his calf and interrupt the rhythm needed to get it back onto the ground when moving at speed.

    Alvarez’s left foot went straight forward and then he plunged it into the ground. It didn’t knick his right leg at all. What would cause his right foot to do that? Um, he would.

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  22. I need to see another angle because it is possible he tripped on himself/got nipped; probably shouldn’t have been called though

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  23. That was horrendous. The RBNY defender that “tripped” him gave up on the play and stopped running, then the guys goes down. What a hack.

    Gary: having an attitude like that is extremely sad. You basically said you’d rather blatantly cheat and do well then play the game as its supposed to be played and struggle a bit more. What an honorable way to approach life.

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  24. I was at the game in the corner. It happen right in front of me. First the video slows down the play so I do not think it is as accurate as it could be. In the real play of the game, it was apparent that as Arturo was trying to split the defense he was nudge by the Red Bulls defense right before he fell down. They did interfere with his continuation. The video slows things down so it looked like he had more time after the nudge to dive, but not true, it was a millisecond after the nudge that he fell down (in real time). So there was a bump in the box. Right call.

    (SBI-On the real-time broadcast video, when you slow-mo it, you see Alvarez take a touch on the ball AND a stable step with his left foot BEFORE he proceeds to act like he was hit in the leg. It was clearly a delayed reaction to the only moment when contact could take place. If the initial contact knocks his leg off tack, he never gets the touch on the ball and never takes that solid step with his left foot.)

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  25. that was a clear dive and was right in line with many other dives in MLS this weekend such as the diving crew against seattle. luckily the ref wasn’t fooled in the seattle game but it’s too bad this one got away with it and changed the outcome of the game.

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  26. I don’t know why NY is always getting screwed when it comes to PK’s…Don’t understand how a ref can not call that PK we had against NE couple weeks back, but this one a ref calls for PK…Also on that play I think the ball went out as well…You can see J.Hall yell that the ball went out of play…So NY gets screwed twice on that play

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  27. Lots of shades of gray. My view of the replay is that it was possible that the defender pushed his left leg into his right leg, sending him off balance. I do think the fall was embellished.

    Regardless, it was a bad call for a PK.

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