About 15 years ago, about when Major League Soccer started up, I was assigned to write a story by the newspaper I was working for about cheating in soccer.
It was a hot topic: “Professional fouls” as officials liked to call them, were seen as creeping into the game, alongside a relatively new phenomenon called “simulation.”
The former was viewed as cynical by the news media; the latter, better known as “diving,” was downright despicable, arguably robbing the game of the sportsmanship that has been one of the sport’s more romantic attractions.
I interviewed a man named Richie Williams, who is today the assistant head coach of the New York Red Bulls, but was then a player with D.C. United and a some-time U.S. national team midfielder known for hard tackles.
Those of us in the press box regarded him as a fringe player, prone to making both mistakes and good plays. I called him for comment on the grounds that if anyone would know anything about fouling, it would be this guy. Williams did not disappoint, and I came away with the sense that some day, he would make a great coach.
“You know,” said Williams, “Not all fouls are bad. Sometimes, it’s right to foul.”
I thought of Williams this week in the aftermath of what is the Cup’s most talked about ejection. Luis Suarez, the Uruguayan striker, was tossed from his team’s game against Ghana after he deliberately handled the ball on the goal line in the final seconds of extra time. It turned out to be a great decision: Asamoah Gyan missed the penalty kick that was awarded, and a visibly broken Ghana fell 4-2 in the tiebreaker.
Ghana’s coach, Milovan Rajevic called his team’s loss a “sporting injustice;” and Steven Appiah claimed no one on his team would have stooped to such tactics.
Suarez, who has craftily appropriated the “Hand of God” moniker once awarded to another South American who handled a ball, was punished for his crime: he received the mandatory one-game suspension that comes with a red card. That suspension has only stoked outrage. Some have called for Suarez to be banned, and columnists around the globe have railed against Suarez’ “cheating,” with one hyperbolic Englishman going so far as to claim that the entire African continent was “robbed.”
There has, in fact, been quite a bit of cheating at this World Cup, and not just by players.
Most folks would agree that England were cheated out of a perfectly good goal by an officiating crew that couldn’t judge the most basic of all calls in the sport — whether or not the ball had crossed the goal line.
Argentina’s Carlos Tevez admitted he was “selfish” not to own up to the fact that the goal he scored against Mexico was, in fact offside — and worse, that he knew it at the time. Cote D’Ivoire’s Kader Keita’s playacting got Brazil’s Kaka suspended, a demonstration of poor sportsmanship so gross that it’s a wonder both sides actually exchanged jerseys after the game. Arjen Robben’s flopping for the Dutch the other day begged for corrective action from the officials, but none came.
One could even argue that some of the absurdly negative footballing tactics used by teams like Paraguay and Greece are a form of cheating because they rob paying spectators of the essential promise of sports -- entertainment.
All these examples have one thing in common, however, and it isn’t just that they got away with it. These all revolved around judgment calls made by the men who are paid to oversee the game. In every case, these decisions were proved to be wrong. After all, the managers of Paraguay and Greece are now out of South Africa with their teams. People have a right to feel cheated.
But Surarez’ decision — and it was just that, a premeditated decision — was seen, and it was punished. Ref Olegario Benquerenca immediately went to his shirt pocket for red and pointed to the spot. What Suarez did was commit a foul. It wasn’t an attempt to deceive or to injure another player deliberately. It was a good, old-fashioned professional foul, before that term became to mean something else.
In the old days, before things got superheated with 24-hour comment and endless replay, fans and players alike understood that some fouls, as Williams astutely noted, are done purely for professional reasons. It isn’t personal to trip someone 35-yards away from the goal if he’s got you beat -- it’s just part of the game.
Somewhere along the line, a group of self-appointed “guardians” of the game — by which I mean moralists — decided that such play was cynical. It certainly can be cynical, especially if you build an entire game plan around it as Brazil appeared to do against Holland, but it’s not innate. There’s not a professional alive who doesn’t understand what they are paid to do, and that they are paid to get the job done by using every means necessary.
The line is also ethically clear between giving up a foul that you know will cost you personally and attempting to deceive an official. Suarez didn’t attempt to hoodwink anyone — he knew he would be ejected, and he took that shot without complaint.
Is it just that Ghana missed their chance to win the game? Is it fair that Gyan cracked under the pressure? Maybe not — but sport, like life, isn’t always fair.
The bottom line is just because it’s against the rules doesn’t make it cheating. The calls for Suarez to be “made an example of” are fueled more by righteous indignation than rational thought.
For once this Cup, FIFA got something right.
Jamie Trecker is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com.
