So the big thing this week in Premier League soccer is the Arsenal-Celtic game. Arsenal won 3-1, the scoring opened up by Eduardo's penalty kick in the 28th minute. This shouldn't be a huge deal. Celtic haven't been huge players in the CL. The last time they won a CL championship was 1967, but that's not to say they don't deserve a fighting chance. They are consistently at the top of the Scottish league with the Rangers, much like Real Madrid and Barcelona dominate the Primera Liga in Spain.
No, the problem everyone is having with the game on August 26 between Celtic and Arsenal is the controversial penalty-kick awarded to Eduardo, an Arsenal striker, in the 28th minute. It's controversial because Eduardo dove, making it appear that Artur Boruc, the Celtic goalie, tripped him in the penalty box while trying to recover the ball. I posted the video above this post. Watch it a few times and you can clearly see that there was absolutely no contact, which fueled the controversy surrounding the goal. Immediately following the loss, Celtic officials demanded that Eduardo recieve a game ban for the dive. UEFA officials announced today in a statement that Eduardo would recieve a 2-game ban for the dive. He'll miss CL games against Standard Liege on Sept. 16 and Olympiacos on Sept. 29.
Now, normally, I wouldn't have a problem with this. I hate divers. If a defender strips a striker of the ball, he should suck it up and try to recover the ball that he himself lost. Don't be a wimp and throw yourself on the ground in a tantrum, trying to place the blame on someone else because you clearly don't have the skills to retain a ball on a breakaway. But the problem I have with this is that diving happens all of the time. I understand that this is an extenuating circumstance, becuase the penalty resulted in a goal for Arsenal that clearly motivated them to score two more. However, I hope that this ban on Eduardo will spark UEFA to start cracking down harder on divers during the season. I'm not going to name any names, but Ronaldo, Drogba, and Eduardo really need to calm the eff down when it comes to diving. They make it look like an Olympic sport.
Arsene Wegner and I seem to have differing views on his striker. After the ban was handed to Eduardo, he released a statement about the ban, which you can find here. You can also find UEFA's official statement banning Eduardo from Arsenal's next two CL games. Wegner believes that UEFA deliberately came after Eduardo and came after him because of the dive. I can almost see this, if the dive wasn't so disgustingly blatant. For UEFA to not take action there would have been a tremendous backlash, mostly from Celtic (at least more than there was in the days between the game and the ban).
Hopefully this ban will lead to harsher treatment of divers so that Wegner does not feel like Eduardo is being singled out. Maybe someday players CR9 or Drogba will be knocked off their pedestals and given a nice slap of reality. One can only hope.
True.
ReplyDeleteThere's a whole lot more to this 2 game ban than just a diving issue. I'm a huge Arsenal fan and I still think Eduardo dived. The problem with what UEFA did is that a WHOLE new precedent has been set by them. This is the first time ever that they have overturned an official's decision. This actually sets a very dangerous precedent and one which I personally don't see them or anyone being able to manage. Their rule has always been that if the ref saw the incident and dealt with it one way or the other, then they would not deal with it themselves. This time, due ONLY to political reasons, they reversed themselves and gave Eduardo, who is NOT a 'diver', a ban he didn't deserve, and didn't deal with the MANY other dives in the other games that happened during just that day.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue is that the ruling was actually based on Eduardo's INTENT to deceive the ref. Prove it. He just came back from a major injury and might have easily been looking just to get out of the challenge of the keeper. Intent in this game is the most difficult thing ever to prove because you have to be able to read the minds of the players. That's the main reason that things like diving, pretending a throw-in is yours when you know it came off of you are still a huge part of the game. For me, intent is meaningless. The action speaks on it's own. If a guy falls when he didn't fall over his own feet and he wasn't touched, punish him. I could go on for a long time, but, I won't. The point is, UEFA are up a creek for this and I think they're all tossers for banning Eduardo instead of the people who make their living as divers (CR9 and Drugba).
Lastly, aside from the dive itself, which I hate, this goal didn't have any affect on the game. Celtic were never going to win and they didn't even have a shot on goal until the last few minutes of the game (which was their only goal of the two-leg tie). I'm not justifying anything, just putting it in a little perspective. He's being vilified when, in his whole Arsenal career, I've seen him dive only a few times. The English press have lambasted him, yet they call English divers (Rooney, Gerrard) 'clever' players for their dives. Xenophobia, methinks. Very sad.