Soccer in America and soccer fans in America have put up with so much mockery from the rest of the American sporting landscape that when American soccer fans mock other sports, it's almost a defense mechanism against all the trolling and douchebaggery from fans of those sports. I'm not saying it's right, but it's not surprising that it happens.
Speaking as a born and bred Brit I don't think it's so much about toughness here, afterall football (soccer) is a fairly soft sport anyway. We just simply hate cheating. If you watch sports like Cricket and Snooker (heavily British sports) there tends to be a "gentlemans code of conduct" of honesty and integrity that players are expected to live up to even though there aren't written rules in place. Snooker players who touch (foul) a ball without the referee seeing are expected to admit to it, cricket players who know they're out are expected to walk without needing a review. We would rather win in an honourable way rather than knowing that we cheated. The problem with football (soccer) is that it's become a global sport with leagues worldwide and most other countries tend to have a win at all cost mentality, diving is seen as an art/skill and because of the amount of foreign players in English leagues it's also become prevalent and accepted here. Even though our referees tend to tolerate more physicality it puts us at a disadvantage in European competition because what would be a good tackle in our leagues is usually a foul in Europe.
Bingo. It's a defense mechanism. And what's funny is when the soccer-phobes act as if its somehow in the DNA of soccer fans to bash the "American " sports. They drew first blood.
Nope. Klinsmann is known as the godfather of diving. It really wasn't that common before WC 1990. FWIW, I think Robben is the worst of all time.
Nope. Been a cultural tradition in Latin America before spreading into Europe. But Robben is bad at it.
The first notable dive in world football was Bernd Holzenbein's in 1974 World Cup Final, Germany vs Netherlands. However, it really didn't start getting popular until the 1990 WC.
There was an example of the gentlemanly conduct in English sports that I talked about in the Leeds v Aston Villa game the other day. A Villa player went down injured and Leeds motioned to kick the ball out of play like Villa had done for them 10mins earlier, the Villa players mostly stopped playing and Leeds caught them by surprise by not kicking it out and went on and scored. A lot of people will argue that you play to the referees whistle as per the rules of the game but kicking the ball out when a player is down injured is one of the unwritten rules of gentlemanly conduct. After a bit of a girly soccer-style punch-up Leeds allowed Villa to score an uncontested goal to cancel out the goal because most people realised it was a pretty underhanded way to have scored. Here is the video but you might need a proxy.
Lol. Here's a perspective from a notable Argentine: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...m-manager-mauricio-pochettino-admits-1.201796 Lol. " "I think today football is more global. England is more like European football. Now we have the influence of the Latin people that try to cheat always." “Maybe you were more pure 20, 25, 30 years ago. Now you are like us.”
Also some people study this sort of thing. https://uopnews.port.ac.uk/2015/09/14/footballers-diving-fault-of-foreign-players/ "This study found that the practice of diving is more accepted in countries like Spain and Italy and South American countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, so players from these countries who play in the UK are more likely to be responsible.”
I noticed that American commentators will commend a player for "drawing a foul", whereas English pundits would traditionally regard that as cheating. A certain amount of cheating is accepted in other American sports. For instance, catchers are commended for framing a pitch and a football player can draw an offside. I can't think of an equivalent move in rugby or cricket.
Diving is cheat, IMO. "Selling a foul" or "embellishing" is gamesmanship. I think it'd be best if neither existed, but what are you going to do?
It was an Argentinian Coach, Marcelo Bielsa, who told his team to let them score though, so not really sure this is an example of English Sportsmanship. More an example of good Sportsmanship period. I do agree though that English football, and by extension American soccer do still have some echoes of the old Amateur ideals of sportsmanship over winning.
I know... although I keep waiting for English sportsmanship to give back that 1966 World Cup to Germany on the controversial goal that modern science says didn't full cross the goal line.
OK, but even if you're right (and I don't think you are) - in that case it was 3-2 not 4-2 - England still wins the World Cup though surely? And while we are at it we will can add the 86 World Cup that Maradona cheated us out of too.
He was under a lot of pressure from the Villa dugout and would have got slaughtered in the press if he hadn't, particularly after spygate earlier in the season where Marcelo Bielsa was caught sending coaches to watch opponents training before their games so that he could gather information on formation/tactics. It might be fair game in Argentina but over here Leeds got fined £200k for it, it's basically like having a friend tell you what an opponents hand is in Poker. Don't get me wrong there's still a lot of individual cheating in English football (acting/diving) but it's good to see at least some sportsmanship is still alive and yeah I'll give credit to Marcelo Bielsa in this case for being a good sportsman whether he was pressured or not.
There's a difference between what you do and what you falsely claim an opponent did. Framing a pitch is not claiming you were fouled when you know you weren't touched. Attempting to draw an offside in American Football doesn't work unless the defensive player does it. I don't think either of the baseball or American Football examples are as bad as diving.
Maybe "Sledging" in Cricket? Trying to argue with referee Nigel Owens in Rugby Union? (joking about that last one).
I think 53 years is probably too long for a VAR. 33 years maybe not so much. The rule should be of the ref is dead it's too late to go to video review.
Cricket players also wave their hands in the air and scream at umpires to try and get calls. And fielders claim to have caught balls that they clearly did not (though that happens in baseball as well). Rugby has also had issues with players faking injuries so the umpires will do a video review. Including incidents with fake blood capsules and a team doctor deliberately cutting a player.
I agree with the first reply on this thread. So many Americans don't even take soccer seriously so diving really doesn't help us fans who do.
There's some truth in that for sure. It makes the sport easy to dismiss out of hand. Puts fans on the defensive before we can even get into what it is we love about the sport.