Wasn't a penalty in my mind. It would have been a penalty, but Rooney dived, too, negating that in my head.
You can see from the replays (and Jazz's picture further up) - Rooney was going to ground before Almunia even touched him. He dived, and was then fouled as he was already diving. Fact is, if Almunia hadn't touched Rooney, Wayne would still have gone down because he was already going down when the Arsenal 'keeper made contact.
It was a dive in my book but one impossible to spot for the referee in real speed
Rooney stretched to get the ball before the keeper came at him, hands out and made contact. He left the floor before the keeper fouled him. It was still a foul but clearly Rooney was playing for the penalty.
Wow. Long thread. It's this sort of interest that keeps Andy Gray in business. You guys know you're complicit?
Just to put myself on the record: I think Rooney was going down before contact, which means he was diving. I also think that neither Arsenal fans nor Wenger nor Almunia can have any complaint about Dean's decision since we all know that, practically speaking, that's going to be called a penalty every day. In fact, Dean couldn't have made any other call, since he couldn't have seen that Rooney was going down before contact. Almunia made a mistake -- a game-changing one -- in rushing out for the ball. I think that means my view is closest to Ekeke's above.
But that's not the point I want to make. My point has to do with how to encourage fair play. First of all, I agree with Plech that Rooney was cheating. I also think Eduardo was cheating against Celtic.
This is also the reason why people are wrong to say, "Rooney made the most of it/didn't try to avoid it, but he had every right to". The problem with this is that if players don't try their best to keep their balance and proceed, it's very hard for refs to tell whether they've been stopped from doing what they were trying to do. Of course players will always do what Rooney did, but it is not acceptable, and that's the reason why.
But I also agree with Merman that you can't blame players for cheating, given the circumstances of the game.
The problem is that the refs rarely give penalties if the players don't fall down. Do you think it should be a penalty if Wayne stayed on his feet, but lost his balance and let the ball cross the line?
This is why we need to use video review during the match. It would change the whole calculus that goes into goal-box situations.
Right now, unless he goes down, a striker can't trust the referee to reward him a pen -- even if he actually has been prevented from capitalizing on a chance. Therefore, there are a lot of instances in which a striker will go down to "make sure" the ref gives the correct decision. And I think most of us are sympathetic with that. Certainly the commentators are. It's quite possible that that is what Rooney was doing.
But putting the striker in that mindset -- where there are some legitimate times to go down -- leads to situations like yesterday. Rooney thought he was going to get contact -- he was right -- and probably thought that contact was going to prevent him from a chance on goal. And, even if he didn't think that, the striker doesn't have time to make the decision about whether the contact will impede him or not. All he knows is that if he doesn't go down, he won't get a penalty, whether he deserves one or not.
The end result is that we have players going down in the box on purpose. What can we do to change that?
I think video review is the answer. If we institute video review, we can be sure to get the right decision (99% of the time). Therefore, the striker won't have to go down willingly in order to ensure that a legitimate pen is given. Therefore, there won't be any justification for going down ever. Therefore, a situation like yesterday would not be a pen because the video officials would see that Rooney was going down before contact. THEREFORE -- before too long -- strikers wouldn't be going down of their own choice. Therefore, the next time, Rooney wouldn't have gone down willingly, and Almunia would have clattered him, and it would be a penalty with nothing to argue about.
I agree with the principle of what you're saying here. However, the likelihood of getting injured in challenges like these increases significantly if you don't take some sort of evasive action when you know a heavy challenge is coming in.
except -- I agree with Gio here, too. I don't know quite how to factor this kind of "diving" into the equation.
But I think I Arsenal fans have far more class than Liverpool. I have read some comments from some of their forums and their analysis is fair and understandable.
what forum, if you don't mind my asking?
I know. I mean, just look at it! How have we chatted for 9 pages about this? It's a clear penalty.
