An old joke here in the Netherlands all comes down to accusing Germans of stealing all our bicycles during the Second World War. Occasionally, we steal something back from the Germans. One of these things is the football term “Schwalbe.”
Now a Schwalbe is nothing more than taking a dive. The Germans dubbed this move a Schwalbe, or swallow, because of the diving flight pattern swallow species in Germany have.
The dive of the swallows was mimicked by footballers going down to get a penalty.
This etymological and semantic lesson is the intro for a pretty interesting tale, so bear with me. On the subject of taking a dive, the whole world knows and loathes Cristiano Ronaldo for taking dives frequently.
In the Dutch Eredivisie, there’s a similar player. Ajax’s Uruguayan forward Luis Suarez is known to go down fast.
As it happens, the credibility of players that go down often and easily declines rapidly. In fact, Suarez hardly ever gets a foul called in his favour, even if he is actually being fouled. His history regarding dives and faking injuries to get penalties and free-kicks has caught up with him.
Personally, I think the case of Suarez (and other similar cases) is just one more reason to introduce video-images to aid the referee. Referees are often influenced by a players reputation and/or a hostile home-crowd when making a split-second decision that can alter the course of the game.
I’ll elaborate. A few weeks ago, “De Klassieker” was played in Rotterdam. De Klassieker translates as "The Classic", the match between arch-rivals Feyenoord Rotterdam and AFC Ajax Amsterdam. During this match, referee Erik Braamhaar influenced the course of the game quite dramatically, twice.
In both cases, video assistance might have changed the decision the referee made.
In both cases, a player went down in the box. Now the million dollar (or euro) question always remains, is that player taking a dive—or was he really brought down by his opponent in such a way that a penalty is fair?
I’ll show you the pictures.
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