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).
Joan Capdevila
looked like he’d just been shot in the right eye with a BB gun. In the 89th minute of
Spain’s
1-0 victory over Portugal Tuesday, Capdevila grabbed the right side of his face, fell, and rolled around on the ground. Replays showed that defender Ricardo Costa may have
barely
caught Capdevila with an elbow. Apparently swayed by Capdevila’s acting job, the referee issued Costa a red card. (This also happened the same day NFL Hall of Famer John Riggins called soccer divers ”
ambulance chasers
” on his
blog
.)
Level of actual contact:
4
Level of simulated contact:
8
Dive duration:
About 7 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.
