On Diving

Another weekend of football comes with another set of questionable penalty decisions. In this post, I'd like to focus on two in particular: (1) the penalty awarded to Man City's Adam Johnson and (2) the penalty awarded to Man United's Danny Welbeck.

Much talk about the rightness or wrongness of these penalties is confused because there are many different questions we can ask. We can question the actions of the attacker or the decision of the referee or even the rules of the game themselves. There are many different questions we can ask, which have different answers. Here, I'll give my opinion on all of the questions I can see.

Was the attacker's action "wrong" (unsportsmanlike)? Yes, in both cases.

Both players went out of their way to make contact rather than trying to play the ball.

In Johnson's case, he kicked out his leg behind him hoping it would make contact with the defender, which it did. He took this action consciously, hoping for a penalty, rather than trying to play the ball. He clearly could have simply continued forward, going after the ball.

In Welbeck's case, rather than running toward the ball, he ran into the defender. The defender was not attempting to impede him. He purposefully decided to run into the defender and trip over him, while he clearly could have gone after the ball instead.

As a fan, I prefer it when players try to stay up even when there is contact. I prefer it when they try to avoid contact by running around or jumping over a leg that gets in their way. In short, I prefer players who act like Leo Messi. Unfortunately, Messi is a rarity in today's game in this aspect just as much as he is in terms of scoring and creating goals.

Was the attacker diving? No, in both cases.

Neither player "dived" in the sense that neither player simulated contact. Both players fell over because of real contact with the defender.

Was the attacker cheating? No, in both cases.

Neither attacker did anything that was against the rules or attempted to subvert the rules. As far as I'm aware, the rules do not award a yellow card for allowing yourself to be tripped.

Was the penalty decision correct? Johnson: questionable. Welbeck: more questionable.

I should first say: I am not a referee. Yes, I have read the laws of the game, but I have not spent hours studying them like religious texts, nor have I carefully read all of the guidance given to referees.

In real terms, however, both instances were of the type that you've seen sometimes given and other times not given.

If one wants to draw a distinction between the two cases, there is this: the defender in Johnson's case had stuck a leg out. In Welbeck's case, the defender (Ivanovic) had both feet firmly planted. While I wouldn't have had a complaint if Johnson's penalty had not been given, Welbeck's feels bad because it's hard to imagine what Ivanovic could have done differently. He defended well, went for the ball cleanly, and even appeared to be trying to stop himself from getting into the path of Welbeck. At the point of contact, he was not even in the path between where Welbeck was and the ball. (He was in the path of Welbeck's motion, but since the ball had moved away, Welbeck could have and should have turned as well.)

Should penalties be given in these situations? No, in both cases.

As I said above, I wish more players acted like Leo Messi, jumping over defender's legs and running around them instead of falling over at any contact. Unfortunately, the rules make this a bad decision for most players. Unlike Messi, most players are more likely to create a goal scoring opportunity by falling over than they are by continuing to play.

This needs to change. One idea is to allow referees to award yellow cards in situations like those of Johnson and Welbeck, where the player did not "dive" but did "go looking for it", trying to get contact with a defender instead of trying to play the ball. If such decisions could be made correctly, the game would be better for it.

That said, if the last few weeks are any evidence, the current laws already ask too much of the referees. So perhaps these changes would just give them more calls to get wrong....