ManicDDaily

Hey Ref! Look at Me!

When we were little and my parents were in another room, my older brother used to occasionally cry out, grinning demonically at me, “ManicDDaily, stop that!  Stop hitting me!”  (Well, those weren’t his exact words, but you get the gist.)  In the meantime, I would just be sitting quietly, over an arm’s and leg’s length away.  Even so, one of  my parents would dutifully call out for me to leave my brother alone.

These were not my brother’s finest moments.  They might, however, have been extremely good training if he had planned a career in FIFA soccer.

The level of “amateur theatrics” as the clipped British announcers call it, or, when it gets worse, “shamming”, has been pretty amazing in the ongoing World Cup.

Yes, we understand that the point is to get the attention of the Ref, and hopefully, substantiate a foul.   Yes, we understand that it is very different than baseball where a hit by a pitcher automatically gets the batter a free walk, without his having to demonstrate how hard the ball hit him.  (Almost invariably incredibly hard.)  Or football, where the Refs can look at instant replays of someone ground into the dirt.

Still, the sight of all that flopping on the field, followed by shrugs and/or smirks, sometimes seems a bit much.

Yes, soccer is a tough game — people are kicked and jabbed, still…I mean… come on.   It’s hard to completely respect players who whine harder than the vuvuzelas.  Unfortunately, the culture of victimization seems so omnipresent that the team with the stiff upper lips might genuinely risk goal shots.

What to do?

More penalties for play-acting?    Maybe the sting of that could be counterbalanced by a subcategory of awards: Best Performance on the Pitch?  Best Kicked in the Shins?  Best Elbowed (Not Quite) In the Nose?  Best Instantaneous Whimper?