PicoBlog

“Why do soccer players flop and fake injury?”

As an avid soccer watcher, I get asked this question all the time whenever I’m watching a match with friends or family. It is a common question and, truthfully, it is a fair question. Because sometimes soccer players are just ridiculous in the way they react to physical contact.

Of course the best aspect of flopping is that the act itself isn’t exclusive to soccer. We see it in the NBA somewhat often compared to other sports.

It occasionally happens in the NFL as well.

We even got a flop in the NLCS this year! That certainly doesn’t happen often in baseball, but I guess it’s not impossible. I have no doubt that flopping or diving occurs in most other sports as well.

It took me a long time and a lot of soccer watching to realize why players so consistently fell to the ground at even the slightest contact. More often than not the contact is not that serious and hardly warrants the reaction we see from players. But there is most certainly a purpose behind it.

Is diving in soccer a problem? Maybe. Maybe not. Honestly, most of the time when a player goes to ground holding a leg or burying their face into the grass, I just automatically assume the injury isn’t that serious. And 95% of the time* I’m right. The player pops up as if everything is okay, especially if they get the call from the referee.

*this is not an accurate statistic but it may as well be

It should be noted that this is only really an issue in men’s soccer, and not women’s soccer. I don’t have a proven reason as to why the women players don’t dive as often as the men. My soccer playing ex-girlfriends have all pointed it out to me at one or point or another, and they always gave me the same reason: women are tougher.

I’ll gladly take their word for it.

So, the answer to the eternally asked question of why?

Let’s do a little bit of roleplaying (no not that kind). You’re the referee, in charge of watching 22 players on a field that stretches 120 yards long and 75 yards wide. I am but one player of 22. I have the ball, I’m dribbling forward with the ball, but all of a sudden there’s a defender all up in my personal space. The defender steps in with his foot in an attempt to poke the ball away from me, but I am just a split second too fast. Instead, as I move the ball away, the defender barely makes contact with his foot and mine.

This contact is so small and occurs so quickly that even the most experienced referee might miss spotting it. As the player dribbling the ball, I know the contact is small, but it’s just enough to put me off of what I was trying to accomplish, so I’d rather take the foul. Therefore I fall to the ground, just to make sure the referee knows what really happened.

As you can see from Alexi Lalas’ tweet above, he says:

“… all in an effort to enable the officials to make a more informed decision…”

Lalas is obviously embellishing an extremely common occurrence in the sport, but his point remains. The players just want the referee to know something happened. It’s ultimately the reason any player flops in any sport, only it’s more common in soccer. They’re just helping out the refs!

To be fair, sometimes soccer players really do get fouled hard, even if it doesn’t appear that way to those of us yelling at the TV while we sit on the couch. As someone who plays soccer frequently, I can attest to that; there are numerous times when a teammate falls even though I think the contact was minimal, and there are times when I have the ball and get fouled even though it doesn’t look that way to the other players around me.

Also, getting stepped on really hurts. Usually it doesn’t look that bad in person or on TV, but trust me it’s not fun. Everyone I’ve ever played soccer with is surprisingly much heavier than they look.

As I sat down at my desk to write this newsletter, some big NBA news dropped. The Houston Rockets decided to trade one of their superstars, although it wasn’t the one I expected.

There were some big rumors weeks ago that James Harden wanted a trade out of Houston, and it looked like the Brooklyn Nets were his preferred team. Brooklyn already has two huge superstars in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, so the thought of those three together is insane even if the team itself wouldn’t be very functional.

There were also some rumors about the Washington Wizards trading the face of their franchise, John Wall. That has now seemingly happened with Russell Westbrook going the other way and Harden staying put in Houston.

As an Atlanta Hawks fan, I’m a little annoyed by this trade. The Hawks have made plenty of moves of their own this offseason, and I for one haven’t been this excited about the Hawks since their excellent 2014-15 season when they won 60 games. Both players and coaches have made this year’s expectations clear: we’re competing to make the playoffs.

The Eastern Conference was already going to be tough with the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics and a finally healthy Brooklyn Nets. That doesn’t even include the reigning conference champs, the Miami Heat. The Wizards were going to be good anyway with Wall and Bradley Beal. The Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers are stocked with talent as well even if they’re both experiencing a bit of a transition period.

So as exciting as this big NBA trade is, as a Hawks fan I worry the team won’t reach its goal this season. The young core, led by Trae Young, is promising. He finally has support thanks to the additions of Danilo Gallinari, Rajon Rondo, Bogdan Bogdonavic, and Kris Dunn. Yet I fear the team won’t mesh fast enough because the season is 10 games shorter.

And now they have to worry about Russell Westbrook too.

I started playing fantasy football a few years ago, maybe about 2015. As the years have progressed, I’ve come to realize one thing about fantasy sport: they’re dumb!

There’s hardly any skill involved and having a successful team relies heavily on blind luck. Injuries are a given, so it’s very possible that of the 18 players you draft at the beginning of the year, every player will pick up an injury at some point during the season and by the end of the year a handful will already be out due to a season-ending injury.

Some years you get lucky. My first season playing I drafted a solid team, avoided major injuries, and finished third out of 10. Two years ago, in a league of 12, I managed to finish third again thanks to having both Ezekiel Elliott and Le’Veon Bell on my team.

This year I drafted a fantastic team! I have Patrick Mahomes (ranked 2nd best QB), Alvin Kamara (1st RB), Davante Adams (2nd WR), and DK Metcalf (3rd WR). My other players score relatively well and are pretty consistent as far as fantasy performance goes. I’ve only dealt with one injury too, and that was to a running back that operates as a depth player for my team.

In fact, my team is doing so well this year that out of the 12 teams in our league, I’m only one of two teams to score 100+ points every single week so far this season (12 weeks). The other team’s record? A very strong and respectable 11-1. They are clearly the best team in the league.

My record? 7-5.

That’s not a bad record. I’m not complaining too much, except now I’ve fallen to fourth in the standings and run the risk of not making the playoffs. And this is where luck comes into it. I’ve scored the most points in the league and it’s not even close. I have scored 1,650 points this season, an average of 137.5 points per game. That 11-1 team has scored just 1,570 points, good enough for an average of 130.8 per game. Yet somehow almost every week I go up against a team having their best week of the season. It sucks.

Naturally I play the 11-1 team this week, so I expect to lose and somehow miss out on the playoffs.

Don’t play fantasy football, folks.

Thanks for reading today! Have a great weekend, the next newsletter comes on Monday, and I’ll see you guys then.

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