Eduardo's Dive: British Xenophobes Must Quit Blaming "Johnny Foreigner"

(Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

The picture above shows Eduardo Da Silva coolly slotting home a first-half penalty that put Arsenal well on the road to victory in their Champions League Qualifier against Celtic at the Emirates last night.

Sadly, from a sporting point of view, it never should have been a penalty.

The Croazilian (Brazilian-born and playing for Croatia) took great liberty of the onrushing Artur Boruc to brush off his knee and theatrically go down in the box.

As an Arsenal fan sitting at home watching the game, I was shocked when Spanish referee Manuel Enrique Mejuto Gonzalez pointed to the spot. Eduardo's theatrically executed dive gave a hint that he was looking for it.

The Arsenal fan in me wanted him to score to put the tie to bed. The sports fan in me wanted Boruc to save it to notch off the injustice of it all.

As it was, Arsenal went 1-0 up, and since then the debate has raged.

I have heard and seen some of my fellow Gooners claim Eduardo dived to "avoid" Boruc as he still held mental scares from his horrific injury which saw him suffer a leg break.

Personally, this doesn't wash. 

One replay from behind the goal clearly shows Eduardo giving a cheeky grin when the referee points to the spot. He knew what he was doing.

Now, before any Arsenal fan accuses me of abandoning my team no matter the right or wrongs, answer me this: Had it been one of the Arsenal scapegoats of Emmanuel Eboue, Nicklas Bendtner, or Alexandre Song that dived, would your opinion be different?

Eduardo has Messiah-like status in North London and rightly so, but that doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to what is in essence cheating: We don't like when it happens to us, do we?

The unthinkable happened with even Arsene Wenger stating that having watched replays he thinks the penalty should not have been given, calling it "very soft."

While what Eduardo did was very wrong, the manner in which he has been treated by the British media since last night is despicable. One would think Eduardo created the art of diving.

As I usually do, I watched the game on Irish channel RTE with pundits Johnny Giles and Ray Houghton. They went through the penalty decision at length, labeled Eduardo's actions as a disgrace and upsetting, but agreed it was systematic of a wider illness in the game. Basically, he had done what many did before him.

Giles and Houghton then went on to offer a constructive resolution to diving in the game. They suggested that a panel be put in place where actions like this can be punished in retrospect.

The goal and result would still stand, but should Eduardo be found guilty of unashamed diving (in this case he would be), he should be banned for three games and fined. As they both agreed, no manager or player wants to see someone banned for such an offense for three games, so it would drastically cut down on this aspect of the game.

Fair enough, I thought; Eduardo can be viewed as having cheated, and if such a panel were in place, not he, Wenger, or Arsenal could have much argument. Indeed, he probably never would have chanced it.

With the programme on RTE breaking for adverts, I then switched over to English channel ITV to listen to their views on the matter.

When I heard what I did, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or throw a shoe through the television.

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