"makes The Wrong Decision"

[adamntg]

And maybe you'll learn the rules.

Can you quote the section of the laws you're talking about?

[adamntg]

I'd say the opposite. It was a penalty regardless of whether he went down. The keeper threw himself in, got nowhere near the ball and hit the player and was enough to knock him out of his stride and prevent him getting on to the ball. Penalty. The fact that refs won't give them suggests to me that the player has to go down to get it and so there lies the problem.

The only thing that should make a player go down is gravity.

I agree that slight contact could be a foul, but it's very much down to the interpretation of the referee. Sounds like in this case he didn't think it was significant enough for a penalty and many people agree with him. That's why we have a ref - somebody has to make these decisions of opinion.

[JasMc1973]

When i played, admittedly nearly 20 years ago now, if i got touched in the box i'd go down - soft or not I wanted to win, i got a fair few of bad tackles and got f*ck all for them so what if I was a cheat, I was a damn good pelanty kick taker too, had quite a bit of practice lol

That being said, if i were to coach today I would not be telling them to dive, it's the players choice and if it won us the match then fair enough - if it cost us a player (booked for diving) then that's different... i hate players diving against my team, I'll have a chortle if one of my players dives and win's us a penalty - but he better bloody score it first )

[RenfrewBlue]

Having played the game to any level, does not necessarily make you a good coach, manager, pundit, director of football, or referee. It's an old school argument that doesn't stand up.

For gods sake! Obviously there's no guarantee just because you played you'll be good. I assumed you'd have the intelligence to understand the argument.

So, since you need it spelled out.

If you have played football regularly for a team to, for arguments sake, amateur level then you are more likely to make a better referee as you will have a much better understanding of the dynamics of the game.

If you haven't played it, you don't have that grounding and will have a steeper learning curve.

Also works for coaches as very few haven't played the game and become successful other than people like Mourinho and AVB.

Get it now?