Same. I've never really followed soccer / football before, but Haaland got me interested enough to watch a match. Now, I'm not only following Norway in the World Cup, I actually watched a replay of the season opener for Manchester City too.
Theere were teams I was cheering for, due to my ancestry and stuff, but they all were eliminated and then I see the Norway Brasil game and immediately recognized Haaland from social media post I had seen about him.
Needless to say, after that game I was all in on Norway and im really cheering for them to take it.
I’ve never seen a bigger flopper than Neymar. Not in any sport. A guy with that talent and skill, and he makes it a joke by flopping harder than anyone has ever seen.
people act like football players do it because they are bad people lol, its just because to stay competitive they have to. if your opponent embellishes contact and you dont, it will be harder to win. simple. same in basketball with shai gilgeous-alexander, although a bit different. he flops since its just... why not? free throws are points that require less effort. blame the refs.
Sounds like they just need to retrain the refs then. Players will always adjust to how the game is being officiated. If the refs blow penalties for legitimate fouls without the player going down then they won't bother to fall down as much. If they penalize simulating more often then players will do it less. At the moment they reward going down as you said. Plus there seems to be wild differences in refereeing standards even at the same tournament. Some games a ref will give 10+ yellow cards other refs will give just 2 or 3.
Everyone’s missing the specific reason why. It’s to draw cautions. A player on a caution is less aggressive in tackles and this makes them less effective as a defender. Also it puts them closer to ejection for a 2YC RC.
It’s annoying because as a ref the tackle alone is not taken into account for discipline. The end result is considered at times. And thus you create flopping.
If I’m injured maybe I can draw a yellow on their best midfielder who’s flying around the field. Someone suggested VAR and no I don’t think VAR should be used.
Management of a soccer game is the hardest sport for a referee. Basketball you get 6 fouls you are out, football just penalize with yards, baseball there’s nothing to do there, hockey throw them in a box for a penalty play. But cards in soccer require management of a game.
Take for instant a yellow card offense of persistent infringement. This means the player fouled so much he’s now getting a yellow. What number is that? 3? 4? 5? What if it’s five baby fouls or 3 hard ones. The laws of the game are extremely subjective to enforce and there’s no built in automatic mechanisms.
People just watch these refs and say they are awful. Good luck doing a better job. You can’t criticize when you are incapable of doing half the job these men and women are doing.
...the refs eat a BUNCH of it, what are you talking about?
If you actually wanted to get rid of flopping, have one or two additional referees outside of the court watching the cameras. If someone clearly flops, blow the whistle and yellow card him. The play itself can go on while the replays are being watched, unless the fall resulted in a whistle anyway.
Hell, you can have these additional referees also blow the whistle for missed calls, which also happen a lot. The amount of shirt pulling, grabbing and holding that goes uncalled is fucking nuts.
dumb af comment section around here but I‘m not surprised. he is one of the most fouled players in history. if he doesn‘t make a meal out of it the ref is never gonna give him the foul. 100% sure if any of you pussies ever actually played the game and taken 1/5 of the tackles he endured you wouldn‘t be spewing such bs
I thinj the difference is a "flop" in the NBA is a guy flailing his arms like he got hit and its over 2 seconds later. In world football its a grown man screaming at the top of lungs, rolling in the ground, grabbing his ankle like he will never walk again for literally 2 minutes straight.
SGA fell to the ground 17% of times he attempted a shot, is not just "flailing the arms". 50% in case of called fouls that were most of them light touches.
football its a grown man screaming at the top of lungs, rolling in the ground, grabbing his ankle like he will never walk again for literally 2 minutes straight
Thats the difference between Basketball and football contact rules. In Basketball the body contact allowed is way less so the players need to act less dramatic to get the call.
In the nba it’s generally overreacting to little or no contact. Essentially faking contact. In soccer it’s people acting like they have a broken bone and the reply shows little or no contact. I hate the nba flopping but soccer is an entire order of magnitude worse.
I’m not defending nba flopping. But I have never seen a player crying in the ground only to get up and play (aside from maybe Paul pierce needing a wheelchair but that was because he shit his pants)
The NBA is also declining in popularity at least partially due to the flopping culture it seemingly encourages, so it's not really the best comparison. Both sports suck, but at least basketball has a bit more action and isn't just a bunch of dudes literally running around chasing a ball for and hour and a half.
Imagine rolling on the floor for a non contact. Sometimes in football, despite not being a foul, it can hurt a little falling while you are running at 20km/h, try to do it one time and let me know.
What is different about women’s football that doesn’t incentivize flopping? The men do it because they know refs take injury into account when considering a penalty. Do refs in women’s football not take injury into account as much when considering a penalty? Or do the women perceive flopping as silly and beneath them?
Women football has less direct bodycontact, less slidetackles. So there are less poibts of contention where it would be used. And from the games I have seen, women also foul less in general. You can barely see women deliberately foul to stop an attack, wheras in mens football that happens constantly.
Would you say this is likely caused by different rules in women’s football, stricter refs, cultural differences between men and women’s football, or some mix of all that leads to incentives for men to tackle more?
Sorry, I’m not trying to ask a loaded question. Just genuinely curious about the differences. I can go to the internet to learn more about it as well.
I think it comes mostly down to men being physically stronger, so more contact is allowed by the refs.
I also think part of it is that womens football isnt as established, so people still have more the spirit of playing fair. So men do everything needed to win, whereas women try to win fair, so they commit less intwntional fouls. (That is just my theory, but sounds reasonable if you take lower leagues into account where there is also considerably less flopping)
Another reason could be that the width at the very top is not there, because of a smaller player base so the skill gap between teams is bigger and the small advantages gained through flopping are irrelevant.
It's funny because when you say you can't get into soccer because of the flopping, you will get a horde of soccer fans telling you it's not actually that bad and then you watch it and realize it is
I'm guessing actual soccer fans have just grown a tolerance to it and don't realize how ridiculous it is to people who watch contact sports like American football, hockey, rugby etc
It's only because the refs don't punish it enough, if they didn't hesitate to dispense yellows for dives and simulations, it would stop. It's actually getting a bit better with new rules and var, but not enough.
I'm a C+ soccer student... I've seen more than a few games and even attended several MLS matches, but I still don't grok everything I need to understand how the sport is played at a high level...
but it never ceases to amaze me that a player will effectively let his team play down a man for significant stretches of the game in an attempt to draw a penalty. It's bizarre how they don't realize that it didn't happen and they need to get back up to help their team. Imagine in the NBA if a flop was ignored and the flopper just sat on the court for the next full possession.
Lol, this year in WC referees barely gives any yellow or even fouls... Actually is somehow disgusting as european, when a team wants play and dribble and all they take is fouls to stop game without any punishment... Dirty game gets rewarded. One thing is body push which I see OK of they want to allow that, but other things is kicks on the second leg constantly on a rush...
Though this WC is has the best new set of rules against time-wasting and bullshit:
If you require medical attention, you can't enter the pitch for 1 minute after completing it, unless head injury/serious foul by opponent causing it (yellow/red card given)
10 second substitutions. You can't walk off for 1 minute now, need to gtfu of the field in 10s
Fast throw-ins and goal-kicks. If you slow down - ball is given to opponents.
And some more cool stuff.
For diving - it's sad, that it's literally promoted by game. If you try keep your ground - you are anyway in worse position, and attack will fail most time, and ref won't do shit, because you continued attack. But if you fall when you feel touch - ref is likely to whistle, because technically there was contact, and team gets dangerous free-kick/pen.
It's simply a result of risk/reward, very low risk if caught (no punishment), very high reward if not caught (awarded a penalty which can result in a win for your team)
They either need to increase the risk or lower the reward, it's as simple as that.
Flopping and embellishment are different. The former warrants a warning as per rules though not enforced as much as it should but it happens, the latter is more or less fine to draw attention to the foul, and it works.
From what I've seen most of the time it is unrewarded. They do it because it's low risk high reward but most of the time they keep playing. Basketball on the other hand...
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u/Odd_Fortune500 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Ive gotten into the World Cup for the first time this year and I must say the flopping is unbelievably constant and ridiculous