Brow Beat

Dive of the Day: Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo

For the duration of the World Cup, Slate will highlight the greatest dives by the world’s greatest players. We’ll score each dive in three categories: level of actual contact (1 if there’s no contact at all, 10 for a huge collision), level of simulated contact (1 for a stoic response, 10 for acting like you’ve been shot), and dive duration (the time from first contact to when the player gets off the ground).

As a friend put it, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo is like a Jenga tower. If you even think of nudging him, he’ll topple over. That was the case Tuesday against Ivory Coast, actually on several occasions . For the purposes of this post, we’ll focus on his first dive of the match. In the seventh minute, Portugal’s incomparably talented pretty boy dropped to the ground after Didier Zokora slid by without making any contact. Zokora was technically in the wrong—he attempted a tackle with his cleats up—but he didn’t even appear to touch Ronaldo. Zokora received a yellow card on the play; Ronaldo’s hair remained perfectly coiffed.

Thanks to readers Mike Lawrence, Benjamin Naecker, and Dylan Fitz for pointing out Ronaldo’s dive. “First of many to come from him,” wrote Fitz.  

Level of actual contact: 2 (Zokora’s tackle was reckless)
Level of simulated contact: 7
Dive duration: About 10 seconds

If you see a particularly egregious dive in a World Cup match, please e-mail diveoftheday@gmail.com . Make sure to include the names of the players involved and the time of the game when the dive occurred.