World Cup 2026

[mongers]

The flopping is so tedious.

Well the Swiss player got his just deserts, and arguable changed the games' momentum and possible outcome.

[Sheilbh]

Are the Argentinians really more dirty than the English players?

Maybe the difference is that our feeds which come from English commentators don't make much of it when England is playing.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DarwO6ngh2D/?igsh=MWxzZmZ4eWk4a3kzMQ==

Thank goodness for "redhot_takes" on Insta to offer a more sober counter narrative

FWIW the consensus of pundits on British TV was that England were lucky on their first goal - as Gary Neville put it following FIFA's comment that the "connected ball" didn't register anything but the Norwegians were on the pitch pointing it out: "I'd trust the Norwegians over FIFA". And also that they were lucky the second Norwegian goal was ruled out. I was also listening to one of the main football podcasts today where they made the point that the striking thing ahead of England-Argentina is how similar they've been as teams this tournament.

Also just to flag because I see people shouting about this in almost every game, covering your mouth isn't a straight red. It has to be in the context of a confrontation and we have seen examples of players doing it and then realising and trying to dob each other in for it. Odegaard didn't and my assumption is that's because it wasn't a confrontation - with his arm around him and then a  pat on the back as well - but rather they're two players who've been competing in the same league for the last five years. But had Odegaard said it was a confrontation or aggravating then Pickford would have been at risk (context here was a player allegedly racially abusing Vini Jr, who was backed up by Mbappe, while his mouth was covered - there was lots more inevitably with Mourinho involved and I think it finally being concluded he'd homophobically abused Vini). But it would still be refs discretion on if it's in a confrontation or not.

More broadly though I basically agree with Norg - I am more sympathetic to the flopping because time and again we've seen that refs don't give fouls if players just get on with it. If you were likely to correctly get a foul without flopping around I think players would flop around less. There's times when they shouldn't - and I think Kane is bad - but important fouls get missed if they don't. Also I feel like you get a bit of "get up" from Roy Keane but the era of outrage over diving feels very past to me - that's Souness and Hanson and Lawro on Match of the Day. It needs to be as obvious as Embolo's (where he starts diving before the opposing player has even arrived ) to get done for simulation.

Slightly interesting/surprising thing for me was both defences nullified the main threats of Haaland and Kane pretty well. I think they still both had problems and needed solutions from other players (and I don't want to pile on but I think Sorloth needs to take a bit of responsibility there - to be really blunt I suspect if he makes a better decision it's a different result). I don't think either had much to do which surprised me.

[crazy canuck]

English pendant saying the team was lucky it should be translated as yeah we cheated like fuck and got away with it

[Josephus]

English pendant saying the team was lucky it should be translated as yeah we cheated like fuck and got away with it

how did they cheat?

[crazy canuck]

English pendant saying the team was lucky it should be translated as yeah we cheated like fuck and got away with it

how did they cheat?

Playing the ball off the wire?  If you subscribe to its not cheating if you can get away with it, then see the post you replied to.

The flop when getting into a pushing match. If that is not cheating if you can get away with it, see the post you replied to.

etc.

[Norgy]

It was not the English players who cheated, although Anderson did make a spectacle out of falling.
I am quite ready to put this game behind me, even though it hurts a bit.

The England vs. Argentina debacle with regards to ugly fouls does have a longer historical context than the Hand of God.
In 1966, the two teams met in the quarter final and Argentina was consistently fouling the English players, especially Bobby Charlton. The diplomatic captain of Argentina, Antonio Rattin, was himself sent off. Rattin interestingly later became a senator for a party that sprung out of the military dictatorship's apologists. Three other players from Argentina received yellow cards. This was at a time when Pelé was fouled so badly that his career almost ended on wet English pitches.

Italian football has a "dark arts" school of thought, essentially all is fair in love and war and football is war. Cynical fouls are not bad, they are part of the game. This school of thought is prevalent also in Argentina and some of the other South American countries.

Here is Claudio Gentile.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - Jonathan Wilson's Angels with Dirty Faces is fantastic on this and particularly the image of the pibe (fulfilled by Maradona), I think Galeano has also written about la garra in Uruguayan football company. And both come from the origins of football in those countries with big physical British players (often from the Anglo elite of those countries but also, say, sailors) and the pibe (or "urchin") is smaller, can't rely on strength, with winning smile and desire to level the playing field with skill and guile and sometimes any means necessary. I think the celebration of that side of the game within those footballing cultures was (is?) distinctive (I did not enjoy the Luis Suarez jumpscare last night ).

Maybe you see bits of it coming up the celebration of the cage footballers in Ile-de-France and South London (the Crystal Palace assembly line)?

I think English football used to celebrate big athletic players, then when that stopped working "heart" and idea of them not going down, play through pain etc. All of that as Graeme Souness (rather despicably) put it "Latin" nonsense. I think football's more globalised now especially at the top level of a few teams, European competitions etc and I'm not really sure there are many distinctive teams or styles. So, sadly, we might be past the days of the pibe or la garra.

Honestly why I low-key enjoyed Paraguay. That felt to me from that tradition of a small country surrounded by footballing giants who need to win through other means.

But I'd still say there's a world from ref having a bad game and players cheating.

Edit: Actually that English (and I think, excluding the Dutch, North European?) way maybe reminds me of some of the Yank discourse going on right now. Where they're basically saying the problem they have is their best athletes aren't interested in football so it's their tenth tier athletes up against the worlds best - which is insane cope and just misunderstands the sport. Athleticism matters and has got more important (the length of careers now is mind blowing) but it is not athleticism that makes Messi or Maradona etc.

Edit: Anyway enough talk about cheating, I'm off to listen to my Tour de France podcast

[Zoupa]

I'm so tired of this discourse regarding the dark arts of football. It's not cute, quaint or "the only way small countries can compete". It's cheating. It's anti-football. It's the opposite of sportsmanship.

There's a LOT of countries, including at this world cup, who punched above their weight without elbows in the stomach, cries to the ref, flopping and time wasting. You don't need that shit to succeed.

[Duque de Bragança]

The flopping is so tedious.

Well the Swiss player got his just deserts, and arguable changed the games' momentum and possible outcome.

Yet, for some reason the English dives did not get a yellow card. They dived their way to the final of the last couple of Euros with dives. Hardly new.


It's not like the Dutch, Germans, French, Argentines, etc. and others do not dive or cheat. Diving and cheating plagues football and VAR has not succeeded in eliminating it.

Ah yes, never try that when playing vs Messi.  What was Embolo thinking?
Speaking of Messi, he can get away with a lot of stuff, see the confrontation with the referee Pinheiro where he demands respect but grants none to the referee.

"HABLÁ BIEN, NO FALTES EL RESPETO. A MÍ HÁBLAME BIEN".

"Speak nicely to me, show some respect, Talk to me nicely "
https://twitter.com/i/status/2076170322919792751

Not to mention the whole 1966 tournament was completely rigged for England, courtesy of Stanley Rous. João Havelange recognised it, but then he was against Rous as he was the ™Third World's Champion™. Rous also happened to be pro Apartheid-era South Africa.
 
As for England-Argentina that year, both teams misbehaved but the German referee followed orders. Germany's turn would come in the final.
Pelé was open season from the very beginning as well.

[Duque de Bragança]

VARGENTINA strikes again.

Think Argentina will win the cup in regulation or PK? 

Extra time? 

[mongers]

..snip...

Edit: Anyway enough talk about cheating, I'm off to listen to my Tour de France podcast

Shelf, I didn't know you were a cyclist. 

[Sheilbh]

I'm not really. I like the grand tours and cycle on holiday.

I tried to get into cycling in London and thought I was going to die.

Edit: Actually, tell a lie - one of my favourite sports at the Olympics too.

[Josephus]

The ball hitting the camera is not cheating. How so? The ref may have erred but it's not cheating. Were the players supposed to stop and tell the referee that the game should be stopped?

[crazy canuck]

The ball hitting the camera is not cheating. How so? The ref may have erred but it's not cheating. Were the players supposed to stop and tell the referee that the game should be stopped?

Yes, it was obvious the ball hit, and play should be stopped.

I think this is an example of the Americanization of sport. They have a tradition of playing until the ref blows the whistle and so would be very much in line with your thought that so long as the whistle doesn't blow, everything is fine

But this is a sport where players kick the ball out of bounds when they see that an opposing player is injured. It's good sportsmanship and that is what's completely lacking in the English side.

Now it may be that we're long past the days of good sportsmanship, and the world has become so Americanized that it's all fine. But I think that's tragic.

[Sheilbh]

I think that's wrong. The Americanisation here may be in expecting very clear-cut decisions and rules when that only really applies to things like whether the ball crossed the line, offside or things like that. In most other cases there is an element of a judgement call by refs. And I'd say, sadly, about 1/3 of every episode of Match of the Day on all the league games is spent talking about things referees missed, or got wrong, or disputed decisions. I think that's got worse over time.

What I've literally never seen (I can't think of any examples) in my entire life of watching football is a team telling a ref they've got it wrong when they've received a favourable decision (that's cricket). So not only is that expectation something I don't think has ever existed in football - what's far more common is both sounds surrounding the ref to make their point. Something that's partly been addressed by trying to introduce rules to stop surrounding the ref and only allow the team captains to speak to them. But I think that side of things is part of what Haaland means when he was saying that it is normal for the "bigger team" by which he meant "bigger names" gets more decisions in their favour - when he's at Man City they get more decisions than they should and they don't when he's at Norway.

But I think that idea even if it was true it's even weaker nowadays because of the technology - you have refs on the pitch, you have refs in a VAR room somewhere else looking at different angles, you have a connected ball and semi-automated offside technology (both of which buzz the refs' watch). What's the expectation here? Refs should go against their own judgement and the judgement of the VAR and (if applicable) the technology based on players submissions. It's already the case that the "bigger teams" have an advantage in terms of refs calls, I think that'd be even more the case if it came down to players comments on the pitch having a bigger sway.

My own view FWIW is that the technology make it all more unjust. When refereeing mistakes, or things they missed, or disputed decisions (which as I say happen in literally every game) I think it feels worse when it's been missed by VAR or overruled by VAR because that's literally what it's there for. I think VAR has been used well. I'm not sure it's been a very well-officiated tournament - but I also can't think of the last tournament or league that I thought was well-officiated and I'm not sure if it's just that we spend more time talking about the decisions of the refs than we used to or if they are just struggling a big/not of a great quality. Plus players can still change things - if Sorloth makes a different decision, I don't think we're talking about the ref at all.

And this is where I think the language of cheating and luck come in. It's not cheating if the ref misses something or has a bad game. Similarly you say when English pundits - or Thomas Tuchel talk about "luck" they mean cheating - and I just don't think that's true. There is an element of luck or if a side has the rub of the green - and to Haaland's point the "bigger teams" with "bigger names" get a lot more luck than the rest of us.