While the international federation has made a good start in fixing the beautiful game, it’s clear that it still has a long way to go in cutting down on the acting and diving that still permeates the game at the top level. There’s much less nonsense in the national leagues – except for Serie A – since a player practically has to have his leg broken to draw a card in the Premiership, but the 20 cards distributed in the Holland-Portugal game and the dubious penalties that decided the Australia-Italy and Ghana-USA games indicate a need for a comprehensive solution.
The real problem is not with the rules, but with the human limitations of the referee. It’s very hard to see precisely what is going on, and when a ref sees player goes down out of the corner of his eye, his first reaction is to penalize the player committing the foul, whether it is real or a phantom one. And then there’s the problem demonstrated last night, when Thierry Henry was legitimately fouled with an elbow in the chest that knocked him down, but clutched his face in an attempt to make the foul look worse than it was and draw a yellow. Unfortunately, FIFA seldom penalizes players for acting after the fact, which only guarantees that matters will get worse.
I recommend three changes. The first is an assistant referee in the booth at all televised games with a phone link to the referee. When a card is given, the assistant ref can review the play as play continues, giving the referee the opportunity to withdraw a wrongly given card and/or to give a card to a player that is clearly seen to be acting in order to draw a called foul. This would have prevented the Portugal-Holland game from spiraling out of control when Holland’s Boulahrouz began the series of mini-dramas after being lightly bumped in the nose by Figo’s forehead as Boulahrouz, not Figo, would have been penalized, bringing the matter to a close instead of inspiring the old Portuguese fox to return the favor minutes later.
The second is to force each team to withdraw one player at the end of injury time. After each five minutes that proceeds without a score, the referee will blow a whistle and another player will be withdrawn. This will speed up the finish and eliminate the stupid penalty kicks that are not properly a major part of the game. Five-on-five is still more of a soccer game than penalties and it would lead to some interesting tactical decisions, such as when the right moment to pull the goalie would be.
The third is to abandon the ill-conceived Fair Play concept. Players who are willing to cheat in order to stick their opponent’s with a yellow card are perfectly willing to go down and play hurt whenever the other team is on the attack. This happens far too often and I applauded Spain last night when they completely ignored the French defender on the ground and went on to have a crack at goal. Furthermore, if a player’s injury forces a stoppage of play, I’d require him to sit out for at least five minutes before he is allowed to return to the field. Zambrotta played injured the last 30 minutes of the USA-Italy game because the Azzurri were out of substitutions, so clearly the players are capable of it when it’s required.