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 as if you’ve been shot), and dive duration (the time from first contact to when the player gets off the ground).
Luis Suarez’s
game is made for
YouTube compilations
. The rabbit, as the quick-footed striker is known, has the ability to make defenders look foolish. He’s also known for being a frequent diver. In the 51st minute of the
Uruguay
-South Africa match Wednesday, Suarez absorbed a boot to the leg at the edge of the box and fell. It wasn’t an egregious dive, but it looked like one on TV. (It’s actually surprising that a foul wasn’t called.) Suarez didn’t stay on the ground for long, and when he got up, though he might have liked to complain about not getting awarded a free kick, he wasn’t able to. He’d cut his mouth a few minutes prior to going down, and it was now stuffed with cotton. Said ESPN’s Martin Tyler: “The man with the swab in his mouth can’t get out his protest, really.”
Thanks to reader Ethan Dean for the tip.
Level of actual contact:
6
Level of simulated contact:
4
Dive duration:
about 4 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.
