This is a question I have been thinking over for days….I think it all has to do with the quality of refs in MLS…Both divers and hackers take advantage of this…However, the divers are the ones decried the most by both press and fans (for cheating), regardless of whether the ref bought the dive or did not….OTOH, very little is said of the hackers in the press, unless there is something to show for the hack job (i.e. a card) or a serious injury resulting from it. The way I see it, both try to cynically push the envelope to their own advantage….Often I see the diving being a consequence of bad calls, and the diver’s desire to try and make the ref “rectify” a mistake by calling a dive as a foul…Not something to condone, but due to the many dismal refereeing jobs I’ve seen in MLS over the years, not entirely incomprehensible. Hackers take advantage of the refs lack of personality, or just over-eagerness to talk instead of showing cards…..They’ll hack until shown a yellow, and noticing how many fouls it took them to get this first card, manage in an overwhelming percentage to keep hacking away until the end of the game without being shown a red card…This destroys the game’s flow, harms good players in the long term (small, meaningless injuries –‘nicks and bruises’ become more troublesome over a season’s length, and over the years), and I think it damages the marketability of the product. MLS wants to expand their fan base to those who already like soccer but do not understand the gratuitous physicality that happens in their league. I’ve watched MLS regularly for the last 5+ years and understand America’s overall mentality toward soccer. Physical play is not something to be seen with disdain (and I come from South America), but if it is not curbed then it really kills the game a great deal….. In conclusion, I really think hackers are a worse problem than divers (the worse of two evils, so to speak)
Divers are a worse problem because with them, it makes it much more difficult for the referee to make (legit) calls against the hackers.
Divers. Is it any wonder the gernal public doe snot like soccer when most of the highlights you see is some player feigning an injury when barely touched.
I look at things in a different way...Just watched the Chi-DC game...Waldo said there were 25 fouls in the first half and about 45-50 dor the whole game..I wish I knew what the avg fouls per game is in the whole league.....I hate hackers most because in order to gain more fans and improve the quality of play, there cannot be so many stoppages during a game...Someone needs to tell ALL MLS refs to be more harsh to those who pull shirts, gets "all ball" but still catches a player's leg/ankle in the process, those who after a whistle kick the ball far far away clearly on purpose, etc... Then we have the fans who complain when not enough chances are produced by the star players.How can they? (Unless they are set play specialists-not plenty of those in MLS-) A lot of stoppages causes those hard working 90-minute players to get back to defense and thwart any meaningful attack, just to see pretty much the same thing happen in the other end.... W/o such problems, i think we would have seen far better games where we can get a bigger fan base, less injuries, and more worth for the money paid to go to the MLS stadiums BTW I think the end result in the CHI DC game would not have changed, but it would have been far more appealing to watch....Besides the goals, not that good a match especially from one of the teams.... Now i'll get back to TV and watch the MEtros....
Carlos Ruiz is a great example: both a diver and a hacker...Nevertheless, he is actually an asset to the league, precisely because he is not just a hacker (which you can get for a dime a dozen) but he is a very skilled player and goal scorer....I might not like the guy (hope they lose today), but most players who get labeled as divers tend to be more skilled than about 60% of the players in the league...It is not right to try to take advantage of the ref by diving, but in contrast to the hackers who do the very same thing, most divers tend to create nice plays and entertain the crowds with their skills...<not involving diving>
Hackers suck! Bunch of non-skilled motha' farka's. DEMA is #1 on the worst hacker list. That Franchino kid in NE is 2nd.
Hackers are bad but divers are worse. It's more difficult to make a good call on a diver, but refs let hacks do what they want. As much as I hate hackers, I can understand why they'll do as much as a ref lets them get away with. Divers on the other hand, I believe refs just have a harder time seeing a dive for what it is.
If MLS was like many leagues in the world (with decent/good refs, I would agree with you But this is precisely what divers do as well, taking advantage of whatever they can get away with...They are both illegal in the sense that they try benefiting from lax, deficient refs...The diver's "good aspect" is that they tend to be the players who the crowd enjoys the most due to plays that usually have nothing to do with diving....
I'm torn. If I see someone hack someone else, it pisses me off. It's a crappy thing to do. But when I see some guy rolling around on the ground, acting like he's just been shot when replays show nobody was within a foot of him, I just want to fly to the city he's in, take a taxi to the stadium, run out on the field, and punch him in the throat.
The difference to me is that the dive is harder for a ref to catch and call so a diver is taking advantage of a ref's inability to see the play. Breaking the rules. A hacker is playing by the rules a ref chooses to call on a particular day. A bad ref will let a hacker do too much, yes. But again, if a ref says 'you can tackle from behind and I won't give you a yellow,' the he ref is asking for trouble. I put the responsibility on the ref to stop hacking while it's almost impossible for a ref to call the diving.
Some nancy-boy dribbling around until someone gets near him just so he can do a Louganis pisses me off. F'ing divers, suck! A hack is obvious and can be corrected by a called foul and/or a card. Physical play doesn't necessarily mean hacking, but diving tries to take advantage of both. A dive is a guess either way that has to be made by the ref and shouldn't be part of the game if you play the old-school man's game. That G.D. new wave powder-puff, flopping-around-like-a-fish-outta-water, ow-my-liver, someone-stepped-on-my-skirt, gurneyed-off-the-pitch-yet-jump-right-back-up-and-want-back-on style of play makes me ill to watch. At least if I'm playing and see an opponent DIVE I can HACK the MF'er later on during the game and feel better about it. See... don't dive and I won't hack... as much.
When I'm playing, divers annoy me, but hackers hurt. When I'm watching a match, divers and hackers annoy me . . . but hackers can have an impact that extends beyond that match because the person they hacked could end up missing subsequent matches with injury. I can never recall watching a match and thinking, "Man, if only [insert your favorite injury-prone player here] hadn't been messed up when [insert your favorite diver here] dove last game." Think back to the US-Mexico game in the last WC: Were you more pissed when you saw a Mexican player dive, or were you more pissed when Cobi got wiped out? And I would bet that the college kid who got nailed by Hristo in preseason would rather that Hristo had been diving. For those who say that hackers are only going as far as the ref allows, I don't buy it. I've been hacked viciously off the ball, when the ref is looking the other direction, because hackers know the odds are that the ARs won't see it or, if they do, the CR probably won't show a card. And it seems in matches I've played and those I've watched, hackers are the biggest whiners when they get lightly fouled. Disclaimer: I probably hack more than I dive, although I try to avoid doing either.
hackers are much worse than divers. A diver, once labeled a diver, is easy to ignore. How Ruiz gets so many penalty kicks is beyond me. But hackers ruin the entire game. In MLS I think they do serious damage to the league by killing scoring chances that would attract more fans and allow people to see the talent that US players have. I watched games this weekend looking for the hacks that ruined the game, and buried the excitement of good soccer. I watched the KC-Rapids game, the DC-Goon game, and the SJ-LA game. About 5 to 8 fouls per game were nothing more than hacks to kill exciting play. Prideaux did more to tarnish the MLS than anyone one player on any other team in those three games; the guy fouled to prevent exciting soccer. How much more pathetic can you get? If refs carded for stupid arse fouls that killed good soccer, MLS would be a better league to watch.
This is a great point...Most players scuffles we see all too often in MLS are caused by hackers who pick on others off the ball and far from the ref's attention....I have not problem with a scuffle once i a while , especially between two teams with a great rivalry, but after a while it gets tiresome and kills the game..Divers by definition do their stuff in order to get the ref's attention and therefore usually while the ref is looking in his direction