By Les Tan/Red Sports
The World Cup has some of the best professional football players in the world. It may be the beautiful game, but it has an ugly side to it, and now the whole world can see it.
Why FIFA does not clamp down on all the cheating and diving is beyond understanding, especially when you bring a rugby perspective to it.
Here are some ugly conclusions one can draw about footballers.
1. Footballers, unlike ruggers, are weak
What is wrong with some of these players? They collapse when barely touched. Are they so weak? Rugby players get tackled with the whole body and they just get on with it. You hardly see rugby players rolling around, writhing in pain like footballers.
If footballers are always bothered by so much pain and injury, perhaps FIFA can introduce a new rule — every time you go down in agony, you should be given a mandatory 5-minute rest on the sidelines to recover. I’m sure that would take ‘heal’ all the fake injuries immediately.
Footballers, from what we can see, are feeble. (See how Daniele De Rossi goes down so easily after getting clipped on his heels here)
2. Footballers, unlike ruggers, have no respect for the referee
You see footballers constantly arguing with the referee. I have never seen rugby players argue with the referee. Why do footballers do it? Where is the respect for the referee?
I think FIFA should make it mandatory that if players question a ruling, they should immediately get a card. After all, a referee is not supposed to change his mind regardless of what the players say, right? So why allow them to argue with the referees so aggressively without any consequence?
All this does is to teach millions of youngsters around the world that it is ok to argue with referees.
3. Footballers, unlike ruggers, have no respect for their opponent
Why do footballers constantly ask referees to give cards to their opponents? Where is the sportsmanship in that? Let the referee alone call it. Where is the honour of winning a game against a 9-man team because you have successfully managed to con the referee into sending two off?
4. Footballers, unlike ruggers, cheat blatantly
Did you see the red card that Kaka got in the game between Brazil and the Ivory Coast? Abdelkader Keita wasn’t looking and ran right into Kaka in an off-the-ball incident. Kaka pushed back with his right arm to protect himself and made contact with Keita’s chest. The Ivorian fell to the ground with great drama — clutching his FACE. (See the video here)
Last night, Uruguay’s Edinson Cavani fell in the penalty area, clutching his knee in ‘pain’, hoping to get a penalty against Ghana. The referee told him to get up. Instantly healed of his ‘pain’, Cavani stood up to scold the referee and the assistant linesman.
The worst case of cheating was Uruguay’s Luis Suarez deliberately handling the ball on the line to prevent Ghana from winning the quarter-final. Ghana got the penalty but Asamoah Gyan missed it. The game went into a penalty shootout and the Ghanians lost.
Not only should Suarez be sent off, the rules should allow the goal to stand.
Where is the justice?
More News and Reactions to the cheating of Robben and Suarez
Guardian.co.uk: Rise of German romantics counters sense of injustice
Rugby is for the rogues though i admire their respect for the refrees (through greeted teeth!) What I hate the most is the pompousness of rugby players and supporters (in my country and in I think in UK where it’s the main games in public schools). They think they are superior because they play and understand rugby.Why rugby fans like to knock football. So some players dive but that doesn’t distract from the beauty of the game to a lot, lot of people.
just look at the lame excuses the football supporters are giving. what are u guys, 5 years old? we are saying it’s better, not more popular. we are saying it’s the sport for real men. “cheerleader moves” in rugby. LOL. get your facts right before u talk girl. yes I enjoy watching football, but the reasons stated above definitely shows why rugby is better.
Guardian on Robben: “… the automatic melodrama of his fully choreographed plunges to the turf is as irritating, even alienating, as the original offences provoked by the Dutch winger’s penetrative skills.”
Guardian on Suarez: “Almost as sickening was the sight of Suárez wildly celebrating Gyan’s misfortune in the tunnel, when under the laws of the game he should already have been banished to the dressing room. It was a spectacle whose distastefulness was compounded by the victory parade at the end of the shoot-out, when the young striker was carried around the pitch in triumph on the shoulders of the team’s reserves.
source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jul/04/world-cup-2010-germany-ghana
as uncle les has put it: “Here are some ugly conclusions one can draw about footballers.” (Y)
The last time i saw it, football was the one allowing people(regardless of a language barrier) to come together and have fun. Of course, when it comes to the thick of it, a certain few tend to misbehave(diving, disrespect..etc). But thats what makes football interesting. EMOTIONS. No doubt rugby is one of the better sports, but saying it to be better than soccer? Not only mine, but many posts would be coming in to suppport football because the benefits that football brings far outweighs the cons of it. And thats why more than a billion people watch soccer whether if they are good at it or not.
i agree with u but no link to the main article
and just ask the rugby players..they play rugby becos they cannot get into the football team, or they dun have a football team (afraid of getting thrashed by other teams)
Some schools deliberately not have football CCAs because they find that footballers tend to give more trouble than they can manage.
how many countries play rugby? 10?
how many schools play rugby? 5?
how many people have heard of rugby?
I see you don’t disagree with the main point of the article — which is that rugby players tend to play the game with more respect and less gamesmanship. Saying how many schools play rugby is besides the point.
LOL more than 50/60+ counries play
and abt 60+ schs 🙂
get it in ur brain dude
Haha, what is Rugby compared to football? Answer this questions.
When you look at the streets do you see kids playing touch rugby rather than street soccer? How many schools take Rugby as a serious sport? How many school fields have the rugby vertical post instead of goal post? How many pages of press coverage did rugby get from the local papers within the past year as opposed to football? What are the rating figures for the Rugby WC compared to the FIFA WC? How many nations bother to qualify for Rugby WC compared to FIFA WC? What are the sales figures of rugby merchandise and rugby videogames compared to football?
Football is the world’s most popular sport, with people from all walks of life playing the game- That’s why you see different characters playing the game. Majority of Englishmen are gentlemanly football players who play the game hard but fairly. Besides, don’t tell me it’s all gentlemanly in Rugby- what about the kid who punched some other kid after losing a match?
Yes, but the reaction to the punch was universal condemnation with ruggers saying “That is not rugby,” which is true.
Nobody is questioning the popularity of the sport. That is not what the post was about. You are off topic.
Instead, with football, Suarez and Robben being hailed as heroes when they cheat and dive to get what they want.
Robben went diving more frequently than the average diver at the Olympics.
You can’t compare which sport is “better” because every sport is different. Comparing football and rugby is like comparing an apple with a sport played by FRUITS. What you can compare though is the popularity of the sport.
Here’s 4 reason why football is better than rugby-
1. You can pass the ball forward
2. You don’t have scrimmages when people touch and smell each other buttocks
3. There’s no cheerleader moves (the ones where they carry one player to receive the ball) during throw ins.
4. Most important of all, it’s much, much more popular!
The post is not comparing the popularity of the respective sports.
The post is comparing the character values that the sports exemplify at the professional level.
Sure. That’s one area rugby is better than football. But that doesn’t mean overall it’s a better sport, because that’s what it says from your heading. Like I said, there’s no sport better than one another because every sport is different.
The headline was only referring to those areas where rugby is better than football.
ED’S NOTE: Comment delete for foul language and insulting rugby players.
Try to expand your vocabulary to include words that do not just start with the letter ‘F’.
I’m a rugby player and I TOTALLY agree with this. Actually, our game is too tiring and demanding that we have no breathe to waste to argue with the referee. And please people, don’t think rugby is played without using brain, just crashing here and there. This sport really need alot of skills and quick reactions. Rugby, the best sport in the world.