Dive of the week: Steven Gerrard, Liverpool vs Sheffield Utd

Ollie Irish

26th, February 2007

9 Comments

Roughly 14 seconds in to this video, watch Stevie G go down and win one of the softest penalties I’ve seen this season. Very poor show Steven.

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9 Comments

  1. Peter says:

    i’m just a newbie at the ‘defending inside the area’ thing, but i can’t remember a time when i conciously and openly dared the referee to award a penalty kick by virtually hugging the opposing player. i really can’t.
    whoever that chap was defending – unbelievable petty and stupid. if i was in Gerrard’s position, i’d have fallen down, too. if someone was all over me in the box like that – if they want to pull a Materazzi on me – then i’m going down, plain and simple.
    the defender was obviously attempting to illegitimately influence the outcome of the game by disallowing Gerrard from having a fair shot at the ball. fine – it was a risky move. riskier than i’d have taken, that’s for sure. and he paid the price for it. as i said, plain and simple.
    i’m glad the pk was awarded.

  2. Sam says:

    I hardly call putting your arm across someone “virtually hugging” him… Anyway, the thing that annoys me is that why was this particular incident given when there are many similar incidents at every set piece, in every game. Why aren’t there 50 penalties awarded a game.
    The main problem with football right now isn’t diving, isn’t foul play but its consistency. If the referees start applying laws CONSISTENTLY then the diving, the appealing and the chatting back will diminish.
    Wasn’t there a law passed ages ago in football saying that any chat back to the ref and the team get penalised 10 yards? Or that anyone caught diving should get a booking? Frankly, how often do those rules get applied? Why aren’t there 20 sendings off a game for “foul and abusive language” to the ref?
    In addition, there should be the threat of retro-active action applied to people who cheat or foul and get away with it. Follow the example of Rugby where people are cited after the game. On the flip side, when the referee gets the call wrong then be brave enough to put your hands up and admit it and rescind the red card.
    Similarly, if a player is booked for a tackle and then it is deemed a red card offence then let the card be upgraded (not as it is now) to a red and charged.
    If FIFA, UEFA and the FA get their collective heads out of their arses and start addressing the problem instead of thinking up more ways to make more money then I might start enjoying football again.
    Oh, and while I’m on it, will someone please disband the PFA? Or at least curb it so that only players earning X amount or less a week can be represented by it. Cause the last thing we need is someone protecting the preening, overpaid, cheating prima donnas I see on TV every Saturday and Sunday.
    Apologies for length.
    Sam

  3. Jorge says:

    Peter is spot on.
    Gerard made a meal out of it, he over-emphasized the foul but it was a penalty.
    The fact that other similar situations are not punished is not a good argument, mainly when this one is just in the face of the referee.
    I think “virtually hugging” is actually a very good description to what occured there, but again the point is that the defender constrained Gerard’s movements in an illegal fashion.
    Soft penalty, stupid penalty but it is a clear penalty.

  4. Jorge says:

    I would also use the word dive for situations where the player throws himself to the floor untouched, like Gillardino’s one that was posted here last week.
    I think that, at least morally, there is a difference between simulating a foul and emphasizing it.

  5. Justin says:

    The fact remains that had Cristiano Ronaldo or Thierry Henry done the same thing, they’d be thrown into the fire by many readers on this blog.
    For a guy who has publicly opposed diving in the Premiership on several occasions, Gerrard sure went down easy and in a dramatic way.
    Is there a separate standard for English players?

  6. joe says:

    Definitely a dive. Disappointing.

  7. charlie says:

    absolutely disgusting
    justin is spot on – if that was ronaldo the press would (quite rightly) be vilifing him for weeks, yet since its stevieeeee geeee, playing for the self-annointed Greatest Team In The WorldTM, it’s glossed over.

  8. Rob Williams says:

    As a blogger pointed out, if this had been Ronaldo or Robben etc then this would have been back page headlines.
    scouse cheat.

  9. Ollie, Pies Ed. says:

    Quite right Rob – if it had been any foreign player, we’d have been screaming. Double standards.