Gareth Bale - a cheat?

It annoyed me when I first saw it, it's annoyed me even more now I've watched him arrogantly talk about it on MOTD. His reaction was, word for word, 'if there's contact it's not a dive'. I'm going to start with my conclusion - Gareth Bale is an embarrassment to the sport.

Maybe it's the rules that are to blame, I haven't scrutinised them enough to be sure. What I'm certain isn't in them though is that a player has a right to throw himself violently to the ground and scream in pain simply because a defender put his arm around you. The opinion on what's a dive and what's not differs depending on what type of player you as. Most strikers will support Bale and say that any contact means you're not diving, wile defenders will say otherwise. I must admit I stand with the defenders, throwing yourself to the floor to make something look worse than it actually was is cheating, end of story. Maybe what is acceptable tackling and what's not needs to be reviewed for refereeing sake, if the argument that 'any contact is a foul' starts ring used anymore its in desperate need. Football is a contact sport, anyone that's ever played it will support me in saying taps happen, it's not a foul. If we're going to penalise defenders for doing their jobs then what's the point in having them? Do we have to tape their arms behind their backs and their feet together with rope?

Gareth bale now has five yellow cards this season - every single one of them is for diving. His closest competitor only has two yellow cards for diving. Oh and Suarez? That dirty cheating racist foreigner everyone loves to hate? Zero cards for diving. How much longer can the FA let the man carry on calling referees useless and telling tv cameras he's going to keep diving if people touch him before something has to be done?

You fall over if you have no choice, you don't do it just because you're so useless diving is the only thing you can do right.

Of course the frustrating thing is that Bale is not so useless that he needs to dive. He is one of the finest players around and does his reputation no good at all amongst honest football fans by insisted on throwing himself to the floor if he feels the equivalent of a fly landing on his leg.

I have long moaned about this, the tragedy is that there is no benefit in trying to stay on your feet. I think that genuine players are almost being forced into going down too easy, if they ride the challenge then it is unusual for a foul to be called. The game has changed, and not for the better in that respect. Players should feel that they are not disadvantaged by trying to stay upright. Unfortunately that is not the case.

My view on it and I get slaughtered.

http://cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=94528&p=923987&hilit=bale#p923449

Not long after

http://cardiffcityforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=94710&p=925406&hilit=bale#p925610

A thread asking if Bale is a cheat.

Proves how brain dead some of ours fans are.

Oh well, such is life. I got a meeting in Beirut to attend.

I think you're bang on Welshineire, referees aren't penalising fouls if the player involved doesn't to down. That's not nessecerily me saying the refereeing of today is useless (although I do believe some of them actually are) but its a flaw of the game. We have a sport that's stubbornly refusing to embrace technology that could make it so much fairer. In a game that moves so fast one man with a whistle can never be expected to be right in the heart of everything, but sky sports' cameras can be. Why oh why does FIFA refuse to allow cameras to contribute to the referees job? It would take five seconds maximum for someone with a monitor to wind the footage back and inspect whether the defender tropes him or not, such a short amount of time you wouldn't even notice it was happening.

I don't think that would stop diving though, it's too deeply bred into the game today. What would be needed to fix that would be toughly enforced punishments, something in my opinion along this idea -

If a player dives with no contact, but does not win a foul - The player recieves a one match ban issued by the FA on inspection of the incident

If a player dives with no contact and wins a foul resulting in a goal (whether directly vial penalty or from the resulting play) - Player is banned for three matches, potentially a points deduction for the offending team.

If there is contact but the player exaggerates it, regardless of refereeing outcome - strong written warning sent to the club for first offence warning them that the players antics will not be tolerated any longer and will be punished if it happens again. Second incident, three match ban for the player and a heavy fine for the club due to their lack of action.

Some it may seem harsh, but this style of play needs to be killed before it grows. Anyone that watched the club World Cup final and saw that Corinthians player hit the floor and roll something like TWELVE times, should agree in saying we can't let it get that ridiculous.

There was 100% contact made, you can see that from the angle behind. I know it gets says over and over, but it's true, if you're running at speed and get tapped, you are going to tumble.

*** G L O V E S *** wrote:There was 100% contact made, you can see that from the angle behind. I know it gets says over and over, but it's true, if you're running at speed and get tapped, you are going to tumble.

See, that's what everyone that is defending him says. The problem with it is the one person that isn't saying it is Bale himself. You'd think if he was genuinely tripped and just bundled over he would say that, right? Wrong, he told television cameras that any contact means its not a dive. That sounds to me like he knew fully well he could of stayed up but chose to fall because he felt he was in his right to. That's a disgusting reaction for the integrity of the sport.

Red614 wrote:

*** G L O V E S *** wrote:There was 100% contact made, you can see that from the angle behind. I know it gets says over and over, but it's true, if you're running at speed and get tapped, you are going to tumble.

See, that's what everyone that is defending him says. The problem with it is the one person that isn't saying it is Bale himself. You'd think if he was genuinely tripped and just bundled over he would say that, right? Wrong, he told television cameras that any contact means its not a dive. That sounds to me like he knew fully well he could of stayed up but chose to fall because he felt he was in his right to. That's a disgusting reaction for the integrity of the sport.

He's said it over and over again. He's probably bored of saying it now.

He is definitely no worse than our own Craig Noone. And that's not saying Craig is a diver. But they are both fast players with the ball, defenders get a bit clumsy...you know the rest. Noone gets fouled every match but stays down longer than he needs to.

I think Bale is getting so much attention because he is a powerful, goal scoring player and opposition teams would like to spread a myth of him diving because it means he will be penalised, not the defender. If he was an outrageous diver I'm sure you wouldn't have Real and Barca falling over themselves to sign him.

*** G L O V E S *** wrote:There was 100% contact made, you can see that from the angle behind. I know it gets says over and over, but it's true, if you're running at speed and get tapped, you are going to tumble.

I don't buy it. Unfortunately a culture has developed in football, espoused by players, managers and pundits that "Contact = Foul" (I don't agree) and there is agreement and even encouragement that players who get touched should go down and are right to do so. Gareth Bale is a case in point; he is hopeless at diving.

In the game yesterday, was he clipped? Yes he was! Did the defender give him tetanus in his trailing leg that made it look as if a steel rod had been inserted? No!! Gareth Bale threw himself down in a way that could not possibly have been caused by the nature of the contact - not physically possible. He simulated a dive in an attempt to gain an advantage from the contact which did hamper him.

And Alan Green tonight said that Bale did not dive and Alan Hansen repeated yesterday that players who are "contacted" by defenders SHOULD throw themselves down.

Then there was Jermain Defoe............................... Who wasn't booked.

Somebody said in this thread that Real or Barca wouldn't touch Bale if he had a reputation as a diver. Yes they would and they would train him how to do it properly!


Some music to go with this!

This is for you Gareth!

Well said NN, completely with you on the critisicism of this rubbish that highly trained, highly balanced footballers will collapse if anyone lays a finger on them. The same wingers that charge into their covering full back shoulder first like a stream train and carry on running, but apparently someone putting a hand around them is too much to handle. If any contact at that speed is apparently enough to send someone over, how come most of the time they don't?

I must say, the Welsh are much, much, much more defensive of Bale than England. We like to make fun of the 'English hype machine' yet also turn a blind eye to whatever Bale does.

Oh, and Noone was mentioned somewhere. I'm against diving, no matter where it happens and what it gains the team. Noone is an awesome player but the time he spends faking injuries in particular is emberassing. He's also developing in the same mould as Zaha in that if he thinks he can't beat his man instead he'll go down too easy when they come close. I hope he changes it, as he's better than that. If he started getting bookings for simulation I wouldn't complain.

I'm Afraid this problem isn't going to to away anytime soon. As I see it there are far too many incidents where players are impeded in a manner that is not seen by ref of assistant. This leads to a Ayer having to over exaggerate the effect. No one likes it, but how do you solve it. They don't even seem to be embarrassed by the media attention post match. There is no question that Bale and the like go down far too easy. I don't defend this. However a defender role is to stop the attack/attacker. This may or may not be done by legitimate means. So my question, which is worse: to feign injury and over react to a tackle, or to bring an attack to a stop by tugging at a player and not be punished for it. One action gains an advantage, the other stops a player getting an advantage and yet it is the "simulation" that we condone?

A foul is, in essence, cheating. So is diving and over dramatisation. You don't make cheating right by cheating. Referees miss so much because the quality of management of the game today isn't up to scratch. I don't know how you fix that problem but it desperately needs it, as you're just creating a whole new problem that needs dealing with by allowing players to take the rules of the game into their own hands.

I suppose one solution would be to make use of effective retrospective punishments for those players seen to be playing outdo of the rules of the game. There are many rules that can be taken from rugby union, citing being one of them. Only for such things that are deemed to get an unfair advantage. You can disallow a penalty that has been scored, but you could ban a player who gained an unfair penalty for a number of games. At the moment the advantages to cheating outweigh the disadvantages.

Gareth Bale is a cheat and a diver, nqat. Even by own absurd 'contact = no dive' logic.

Need I remind us all of his dive at Villa earlier this year?