chetzoid's blog: "Chetzoid's World"

One of the biggest turn-offs for Americans is the faking of getting hurt.  A player with possession of the ball gets challenged by an opponent and falls.  What galls me is seeing that player laying on the grass writhing in pain from the contact.  The ref calls a foul and the defender is given a yellow card, in essence a technical foul.  After the yellow card is given, the player writhing in agony suddenly jumps up with a smile and has no apparent problem walking or trotting around.  If FIFA would make it a penalty and require the faker to be given a yellow card this crap would stop.  Also, just as bad, the player on the ground gets carried off on a stretcher only to return within a minute or two is crap.  If the player is injured enough to have to be carried off on a stretcher should his safety be compromised to allow him to continue?  Just require the player to be substituted for.  All these tactics are designed to do is allow time to run off the clock and get a cheap foul called.  If yellow cards were issued for these types of tactics the game would benefit.  These types of incidents would all but disappear.  Remember how many guys in the NBA used to "flop" to get fouls called close to the basket.  NBA refs started ignoring flops and thus hardly anyone even trys anymore and play close to the bucket has improved.