Now, we’ve all become accustomed to seeing some of the ugly parts of the beautiful game.
Diving is undoubtedly one of the biggest problems we needed to clean up. And ridiculous videos like this one may help to do that.
Feyenoord’s Steven Berghuis got a little pat on his head from an opposition player at the weekend. It was a friendly ‘nice one, mate’ from Utrecht player Willem Janssen. That was it. Nothing more.
Yet this was how Berghuis reacted as he is being ridiculed across social media.
Wishing Steven Berghuis all the best with his recovery after this horror injury ❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/4SseR3kiKh
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) September 23, 2018
Now, we all know that ‘trying to win a free kick’ and other forms of embellishment are apparently part of the game. We don’t like it. But until VAR is commonplace at all levels of the game, players will continue to try and get away with whatever they can.
But incidents like this and some of Neymar’s antics this summer, coupled with the public ridicule that type of simulation has received, will surely act to dissuade future generations from attempting such outrageous levels of skullduggery.
We live in hope.
Word has it Berghuis is off to a swimming pool in Rotterdam on Monday to perfect his diving skills...
