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).
My brother thinks
Arjen Robben
resembles Brad Pitt in
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
. (Apparently he’s not the
only one
who has that opinion.) The 26-year-old Dutch winger looks like he’s 40 and reacts to routine fouls like a frail octogenarian. In the 21st minute of Tuesday’s
Holland
-Uruguay World Cup semifinal, Maxi Pereira tackled Robben from behind. It was reckless. Still, the way Robben contorted his face into a
Greek mask
-like expression as he fell, you would’ve thought Pereira
—
who was given a yellow card
—
hit Robben in the back with an ax.
Level of actual contact:
6
Level of simulated contact:
10
Dive duration:
About 8 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.
