Good afternoon.
The boy Bale is undoubtedly going through what you might call a rebirth. No longer content with being what he obviously believes to be an admittedly lightening fast one trick pony who owns the left wing, his transition into a more central, Ronaldoesque figure is almost complete.
All we are waiting for is for the fine tuning if you like. The balance between him being an as effective team player and a regular goalscorer. The signs after only 7 games in are generally encouraging.
But then there’s the diving.
There are a number of issues here. The first is that he never used to dive. I never had the privilege of watching Didier Drogba prior to his shift at Second Hand Fridge so for the entirety of the time I watched him play in the Premier League he was a rotten, cheating diver.
The next is that cheats don’t prosper. That may make me sound like some Victorian school teacher but hear me out. When footballers hang up their boots and all they are left with is some money in the bank, some memories and their reputation.
Jimmy Greaves: Prolific barely describes his goalscoring. Reputation? Can be a bit prickly. Gary Lineker: Top notch player. Reputation? Housewife’s choice. Sol Campbell: One of the finest centre backs of the last 20 years. Reputation? Lots of people wouldn’t save him if he was drowning.
Gareth Bale needs to seriously sit down with someone he listens to and watch tapes of him simulating and decide …to stop it. And I think I know what Bale might say if you could get him to speak candidly about the subject.
While there are players like Charlie Adam in circulation and you have referees who fail to see every unlawful attack then it’s only right that you [the victim] do what you can to protect yourself from and try to stamp out these unfair and potentially dangerous challenges.
But this is naive. The reality is that until effective technology comes in the referee will miss things. The game is so fast and athletic now that in the thick of it the odd kick or worse will literally be quicker than the human eye.
Diving isn’t the answer. Is it? For every free kick he dubiously wins a small piece of his credibility is chipped away. Or am I missing something?
Luis Suarez this weekend plumbed new depths to the extent that he actually made a laughing stock of himself. The ‘cry wolf routine’ is so exhausted with Suarez now that an opponent could whip out a baseball bat, thump him over the head with it and most referees would jog past the concussed Uruguayan, waving ‘get up’.
Bale must stop diving.
he’s sort of contradicted himself by pointing out that it’s hardly a meritocracy when dropping Brad for Hugo, when he’s ‘hardly'(I’d say hasn’t) done anything wrong-but I’ve moved on now-just about. Bu although it’s been a slow process at least real newspapers are beginning to come round and give us a fairer hearing
Hard to choose where I should post my reply, but it’s directed at Astromesmo.
Much as I admire your unwavering show of support/giving Bale some kind of benefit of the doubt, to me the issue is simple. He dived. This is no isolated incident, it is an unsavoury aspect which has crept into his game.
The media has not turned the majority of Spurs fans against him, or anything quite so dramatic as that. It’s his own amateur dramatics. Clearly he has not reached the level of Suarez. May he never become so reviled, a talented footballer hated by most.
Any player can get hurt in a bad tackle. Scared players tended to get hurt more than brave ones. You made various excuses for the dive, such as getting out of the way of some impending clattering of legs which wasn’t likely. Actually diving in the manner Bale did is no faster a way to avoid contact as staying on your feet would be. Had Bale stayed upright, and perhaps retained the ball, we would still be attacking with the Villa keeper in no man’s land. The dive was intended. Likely to try to contact the ref. Regardless of the lack of gesturing, which was cited as being in some way proof of no cheat attempt. I don’t buy that.
Regarding Bale/Adam in preseason, a sheep like GB public were smarting at some misinformed guff controversy over Bale’s availability during this time having been unavailable for Team GB. As the ignorant were up in arms over the snub that wasn’t, they also chose to claim Bale milked the whole Adam challenge incident since he was made available for our following game a few days later.
Those critics were not Spurs fans. Regarding the diving, many critics are Spurs fans. Most of us have acknowledged this is an aspect of the game which Bale and football would be all the better if it was eliminated.
Flopping is prevalent in basketball and is steadily appearing in American football too. It is not welcome there for the majority of fans either. It is the very opposite of the term “sportsmanlike” and does not require excusing. I’d be all for retrospective bans if it stamped it out of the game.
Players wouldn’t be flopping if a clear dive resulted in a two week ban without wages, would they?
*con the ref – not contact. Bloody mobiles.
come on MS that was your fat fingers not the mobile,you cant con us Spurs fans,that was dive if ever I saw one ,trying to get the mobile a bad name eh.
The main drift of my ramblings was to maybe give a little appreciation of some of the punishment the guy has taken to counter the trial by video (If you want the re-run, Spooky has the same story with an equally pious commentary on BBC2).
All I know is that the sound the Lazio right back made on his shins about 15ft from me was no am-dram. The guy gets battered. I’m not blindly sticking up for him, yes, AVB should have a quiet word but I think that’s it.
Truth is that, until you’ve had to deal with a major injury none of us have any idea how we’d behave after.
Yes, retrospective bans would be great but they’re not going to happen. UEFA tried that one, Arsenal nixed it, that was that. Never going to be on the agenda again. The FA won’t even act on a forearm smash on a Monday morning when it’s captured on film clear as day.
I also wanted to maybe mischievously point out that our high-horse harrumphing morals do seem to be part-time at best. When Vertigo or Benny pulls a shirt (Both in the area). That’s cheating but it’s different cheating.
I guess that’s just the way of us football fans though.
Anyway, COYS and COYBaler. I’m glad he wears our shirt and generally, I think he does it proud.
Astro, no offence, but if you were a keeper in my team and were not putting yourself on the line because you were scared to get injured again, I’d want a replacement. This is the Premier League we’re talking about here, not the Sunday league.
Now I’m not saying I want Bale replaced, but if this diving continues, I will. Whether it be for cheating, or avoiding ghost tackles.
And as for me believing that Bale wasn’t being manly enough when Adam put him out the game, where exactly did I say that? Complete tosh.
Good day.
The leg actions of the villa goal keeper are intentionally to hoof the ball anywhere, its spilt second stuff, Bale reacted but didnt dive IMHO. He took the gas off and let moments of a force do the rest. Top Blog btw.
I going to fall down flop around pick a bale apart
Im going to jump down turn around and destroy my own winger
You are all stark raving mad.
Some mass murderers get better support than Bale is getting
This particular blog entry is about Bale diving and has clear video evidence of him doing it.
If you’re a bit precious (or blind), I’d wait for another blog if I were you. You can dazzle us all with your sanity then.
Forget Knocking Bale…here is a real dichotomy to solve…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/tottenham-hotspur/9595055/Tottenham-Hotspur-goalkeeper-Hugo-Lloris-urges-manager-Andre-Villas-Boas-to-keep-him-as-No-1-keeper.html