Cheats can prosper

Spot on Merse, it appears the "Nanny State" is working its way into football now.
What would we talk about if we didn't have incidents like last night.
Unlucky Ghana, but the rules were correctly applied and you missed your chance so good luck to Uruguay in the next round.

I think that we are all aware that Sportsman must nowadays seemingly have this in-built ruthlessness if they want to succeed at the highest level but the question is this. Is it morally right that they have such ruthlessness? Is it right for women tennis players to grunt like pigs on the centre court to try and put opponents off their game but as Tim Henman pointed out on Radio 5 Live the other night that none of them do this on the practice courts?

Has it become common place in all sport that you have to be completely ruthless to succeed? You could certainly argue that some team's actions have bent the rules for the sport in general. I'm thinking here of Australia in Cricket and South Africa in rugby. Both teams have demonstrated over the years that they are willing to examine just how far they bend the laws of the game without actually taking a blind bit of notice of it. Who doesn't remember Ricky Ponting arguing with Duncan Fletcher at Trent Bridge after he was caught by a very able substitute fielder? The allegation Ponting made was that England deliberately picked excellent local county fielders as subs and used them more than the spirit of the game should really allow them to. Technically Fletcher was breaking no rules, but it was against the spirit of the allowance of a substitute fielder when needed.

But is it possible to play any sport within the rules and the spirit of the game? There are such huge rewards and such a huge amount of money in sport this days that you would be hard pushed to find many examples. Formula 1 is an example I guess. The two most successful drivers of the modern era were Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Both drivers were supremely talented but they also had an extreme ruthless edge to them when threatened by rivals. Ayrton Senna enjoyed shunting Alain Prost off the track whenever he could and Michael Schumacher did the same the same to both Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve. Nigel Mansell was also a hard competitor but I can't remember one occasion when he shunted someone off the track. I've been sensing a thaw in Lewis Hamilton's general attitude this season. Jenson Button seems to have had a big influence on him recently and I sense he's beginning to change his ways a little. As Button proved last year he could be ruthless in overtaking cars when he needed to, but even when things started to get difficult he never resorted to running people off the track. However I did laugh a few weeks ago when both Force India cars roughed up Michael Schumacher a bit to pass him. I think Schumacher has been a disgrace this year in the way he's conducted himself on the track, it was nice to see him get a taste of his own medicine.

Luis Suarez was only guilty of doing an instinctive action. But the action was an illegal one and should be punishable by more than a red card and a penalty. You have to ask yourself whether he would've done the same thing in the first few minutes of the game rather than in the dying seconds of extra time. My guess is that he would've ducked and let it go in rather than risk a red card and a chance that the resulting penalty would've been saved. It's harder to come back from 1-0 down with 10 men rather than 11.

I find myself agreeing with you here Chris and while it may be claimed the action was purely instinctive it can’t really be that simple because in a split second the player has made a calculated decision based on such factors as at what stage the game is at, it does show how powerful our brains are to process all the information and then act upon it one way or the other.

I’m sure Merse said the rules should be changed and if the ball was stopped from going in the goal in this way, the goal should be given, he then said “Ghana lost that semi through mental weakness, nothing more; nothing less”. The facts are they lost because they were denied the victory because a player on the other side cheated.

I did say “You only had to watch the scenes after the game to know the law needs to be changed as the player who missed that penalty was so deeply upset and distraught and it’s going to take a long time before he ever gets over that miss and blaming himself for his team going out of the world cup”

And merse came back with

No!

It was entirely the responsibilities of those who missed the three penalties that Ghana went out of the World Cup.

Nothing riles me more in football than people whingeing that it was "something else" that cost them a result. Those strong characters who can put their hand in the air and accept responsibility are the ones who ultimately become winners and who have the mental strength and fortitude to turn such an experience to their future advantage..................not cry baby divas who are so precious they can't handle making a mistake.

I think the player concerned showed great mental strength to take the first penalty in the shoot out and he showed courage when it was required, but despite that at the final whistle he could not escape the fact it was his first miss that ensured a penalty shoot out would follow that his team lost.

I don’t think any player in the Ghana team were whingeing that it was "something else" that cost them a result. They know along with everyone else who watched the game what cost them the result, CHEATING that’s what cost them.

I read views on here from members who say they don’t want to see cheating, they don’t advocating cheating, or are happy to see a team progress to the next round in the way Uruguay did and then say they don’t want to see the rules changed. Unless the rules are changed then its something that will keep happening and if we know its wrong and don’t want to see it happen, then a way needs to be found to stop it happening.

Chris says a player might think twice about doing it very early in the game, he sure would if he knew the goal would be given and he would be sent off, would he then still instinctively stop the ball going In with his hand? I don’t think he would as there would be no point doing it as his action would not prevent the goal being given.

Its only because the player knows the goal won’t be given and there is a chance the spot kick could be missed he will stop the ball with his hand as by doing so he at least gives the team a small chance of winning the game they were certain to lose if he had not stopped the ball going in.

Make it so it will be a goal and we won’t see these things happen again, it’s the same with all the other things that need to be stopped in the game such as shirt pulling etc, send a few off and the message will get to the players and to the managers and in time that too will no longer be apart of the game.

The thing is that it won’t happen because we would end up with five aside games and as it’s a sport where people pay good money to watch it, keeping 22 men out on the pitch seems far more important than having the game played by the corrct rules.

I usually begin to have doubts when another person agrees with me

There's a mental image I didn't want to have.

I think you're being a bit harsh on Tim Henman. I'm no real fan of his but I would say that he maximised his talent and was regulary ranked in the top 10. Most of these new breed of lottery funded, pampered players in LTA academies could only dream of making it to 6 Grand Slam semi finals and winning 15 ATP titles. I think Tim played a style of Tennis which, like his fathers tweed jacket, was a bit old fashioned and he never had a major weapon in his game (ie a big serve) to fall back on and pick up cheap points. You can't play at a maximum all the time and battle for every point because you're always going to come up short against the better opponents.