Cristiano Ronaldo Has Got Nothing On This Guy

So we all like to moan at how Cristiano Ronaldo is such a fairy and how he dives more frequently than an Olympic diver during training, but I recently stumbled across a player diving with such grace and finesse that it puts Ronaldo to shame.

In the Netherlands, we refer to the noble art of diving on a football pitch as "making a Schwalbe." An old joke here in the Low Countries 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.

During a Colombian league-match between Atlético Junior and America de Cali, forward Emerson "Pioja" Acuña managed to demonstrate a Schwalbe that is so blatantly obvious that everyone should have seen see right through it. Should have seen...

As he was was about to receive a through ball by a team-mate, the Colombian striker went down as if he'd been shot. Rather theatrical and all, but it happens in the world of professional football. What makes this case so different from all others, is, for starters, that there was no defender or opponent near him at the moment he went down.

Look for yourself at the footage right here. Would you have fallen for that? I can actually imagine the referee missed it, with a lot of players being huddled together in the box, but how could the linesman have missed this?

Proof that Justice is not as blind as certain referees came later on in the match, when Acuña received a second yellow card for... wait for it... twist of irony... diving...

So next time you start whining about poofy Cristiano Ronaldo, just keep in mind there's always players who can do worse.