Word to Charlie Davies: Just behave, man!
by Steve Davis on Jun 20, 2011 9:55 AM EDT
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I feel like I beat on Charlie Davies quite a lot. My beatin’ arm is all sore, in fact.
Heck, when it comes to my writing and domestic soccer piñatas, Davies is right up there with MLS refereeing and Los Angeles Galaxy’s sense of entitlement as the most tiresome targets.
So I want to go on the record: I have absolutely nothing against Charlie Davies personally. I just want the young man to behave!
I need to be on the record because I beat on the D.C. United striker again in this week’s MLS review at SI.com. (It should be posted soon Posted here now) The latest point of Davies-related contention is Saturday’s stunt in Utah. Davies flung himself inside the Real Salt Lake penalty area late in a close match, drawing a highly dubious spot shot and helping his team earn the points. (Video of the incident is here.)
Yes, part of a striker’s job is to draw fouls. But there’s the rub; They have to actually draw a foul, not con the referee. Creating contact is different than pure, cynical simulation, a.k.a., diving.
You can read more about that at the SI.com page. Meanwhile, here’s what I’d like to say to Davies:
I’d summon my best Morgan Freeman-Shawshank Redemption tone and, as Red said in the landmark men’s favorite: “I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are.”
Charlie, man, here’s how things are:
The best among us probably aren’t going to get what you have. You have tremendous life opportunity in front of you.
You are a well-paid, professional athlete, handsomely compensated for playing a boys’ game. You are adored by fans, and you even have a shot at returning to national team grace, which means everything I’ve already mentioned gets amplified by 2X or 3X.
So don’t take it for granted, man! Don’t throw it away by making childish choices, or by dragging your reputation through the mud.
Davies has a history of spotty choices, some of which have been associated with (literally, sadly) catastrophic results. Diving isn’t going to create such dramatic, life altering consequences. But it will ruin your reputation. And in the end, it will hurt your team.
I know MLS referees aren’t held in high regard. But even this bunch doesn’t want to be made to look foolish. If word wasn’t out before about Davies before, it darn sure is now. United has earned a league-high six penalty kicks. But how many more PK calls do you suppose are heading United’s way over the second half of the MLS season?
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/Cristiano Ronaldo applauds, tears up…
"Acting is happy agony." -Jean Paul Sartre
Barca Blaugranes- SB Nation's FC Barcelona blog
@shadowking011
In addition to hurting the team, the diving tendency hurts Davies two other ways:
1) Most USA soccer fans hate diving, even if it helps our team. Prime example #1 was Jermaine Jones’ similar “phantom foul” that drew a penalty against Jamaica. I and many friends of mine cursed Jones for that one, even though it helped the USMNT ice a game that was far closer than it should have been (as usual). If Davies keeps diving like this, he risks having the fans turn on him in larger numbers.
2) Davies simply has more talent than most MLS players and can, with his athletic ability alone, get himself into positions to “draw” more penalties with dives like this, but that doesn’t help him develop his skills further to compete against the best players from around the world. Davies still needs to improve, and he’s now at a point in MLS where he could probably “just cruise along” at his current workrate without significantly raising his game (cough.. DONOVAN… cough). If he wants to get back to the point he was before, however, he needs to continue working and improving… and this diving mess is a step in the wrong direction.
I mean, sure… Ronaldo is a notorious diver, too, but he’s a) far ahead of Davies from a talent standpoint, and b) from a country where diving is not only tolerated, but expected and even celebrated.
A simple solution to diving...
is having 2 on-field referees on the pitch. One for the on-the-ball action who can get deeper into the offensive end, and the second to watch the action behind the ball…
????
So when Davies can dive as well as Ronaldo he can dive more?
I totally don’t understand anything in this post, every four years I witness the best players from around the world do their best flopping and writhe in pain for 10 minutes from a shoulder push. Its incredibly stupid but until FIFA makes the committing the foul a foul and not the upending of a player a foul this will be a part of the game.
Consistency, man!
If you’re going to beat up on Charlie Davies for his diving, you have to tear into Jermaine Jones for his awful dive in the US vs. Jamaica GC quarterfinal. Jone’s dive would make Davies blush. Unlike Davies he wasn’t even touched. There was even the theatrical spreading of the arms a full half-second after he was past Taylor. He did it to get a fellow player tossed from the game (and shame on the ref for falling for it). Worse, he gave up on an excellent scoring opportunity to do so. Taylor’s red card wasn’t merely “iffy” (as you stated in the SI piece), it was a disgrace. You’re not the only one. Goal.com tore into Davies with a front page piece, but hardly utters a peep about Jone’s awful dive.
I hate diving. It is cheating. I hate it when Davies does it (and I’m a DCU fan), and I hate it when one of the golden boys on the USMNT does it. It should roundly be condemned regardless of the player, importance of the game, and who you’re rooting for.
Re: Jones
1. On the replay Jones was clearly fouled. He was clipped which slowed down his run making him not be able to get to his ball which was placed at a position he could only get it if he maintained full speed.
2. The Jamaican player was clearly attempting to foul Jones (albeit he didn’t really tear into Jones), he had 0 chance at the ball. It was a strategically correct professional foul (yet controlled and not reckless) and its hard to find fault with because of that .
3. How Jones’s right leg could not seem to make contact with the ground two strides later when his left was clipped is a mystery, could be some type of advanced muscle spasm which might come in handy to make it really obvious to the referee he was fouled.
The bizarre thing is after all that, and the fact that the majority of people couldn’t tell what happened even with the replay, the ref got the call exactly right in real time (although he does have 3D vision).
This is kind of fun, we should play flop or foul more often.
Use the same standard for both
I looked and looked at the replay (on the Univision stream). I couldn’t see any contact. The announcers also came to this conclusion. Regardless, what Jones did (your point #3) is exactly what we are accusing Davies of doing. In the PK vs. the Galaxy he was fouled by Omar Gonzales (Gonzales stiff-armed him, just enough to throw him off the ball and thus deny a goal scoring opportunity). Davies did embellish it though. In many cases refs don’t call the foul Gonzales committed, which encourages forwards to embellish the contact. In the PK vs. Real Salt Lake there was also contact but there was no foul as Wingert made a good play. Again, Davies embellished the contact. This is exactly was Jones did regardless of the contact Taylor might have made with him. The problem I’m pointing out is that in Jones’ case people are giving him the benefit of the doubt (“but there was contact!”) but in Davies case everyone is piling on. And it looks to me that this is because most of us are US fans, but few of us are DCU fans.† That double standard is not right. Diving is diving.
As for the ref in the Jones case getting it right, I disagree on multiple grounds. First, it didn’t even look like a foul, since there was no contact and Jones could have gone on. Second, even if it was, it is very iffy that Taylor was the last man, since he had help on either side of him. Third, this occurred a good 30 yards from goal. This is a yellow at most, because of your point #2. And finally—and again, regardless of any contact—the dive was obvious in real-time, so Jones also should have received a yellow (his second) for simulation.
†In this game report on Goal.com the writer attempts to dismiss the incident as insignificant, claiming (in the very last paragraph) that “by that point the game already seemed out of reach.” Bull. This was a pivotal moment with a half-hour left in the game and Jamaica only down by 1. The US got its second goal because Jamaica was a man down and was pushing hard for the equalizer. With Taylor still in the game I doubt Dempsey gets acres of space with only Ricketts to beat.
What's particularly sad is that such a tough, likable kid is doing it
Davies is a former wrestler and he’s come back from devastating injuries, so you know he’s tough. I loved the dynamic, positive style he displayed with the MNT prior to the car wreck. He’s been one of the players I’ll go out of my way to watch in MLS. Now there’s a “but” in my mind when I think of him. I’m really rooting for him for him to return to form, BUT I despise diving. I do hope he stops.
MLS Cracking Down on Diving
MLS does have the authority to discipline diving (MLS Discipline Summary) the question is if the would they ever do it. Also, with MLS wanting to crack down on the physical play, it only promotes diving, so they need to do something about the diving too before we look like La Liga.
I think they should review dives and add a yellow card to a players total when caught making an obvious untouched dive and make an automatic one game suspension when the dive is inside the box. (Once a player has five yellow cards they are suspended one game.)
Thoughts?
Roll Tide and Vamos United!
All for it.
But I have a question: is MLS allowed by FIFA to review footage after the fact to discipline players that the referee did not discipline? If so, they should go for it. Players will think twice about diving once they realize it is not just the ref—who has to make a quick, real time decision—that they have to fool.
It happened to a Sounders player ealier this season.
He was called for a foul (rightfully). Later in the week he was issued a fine ($250 maybe?) and issued a yellow card.
I’d be all for seeing yellows given retro-actively for simulation.
Carrasco
It was Carrasco – and yes, he definitely deserved it. And, for his part, the system worked in that he has not done anything like it since.
What I saw was a clumbsy challenge in the box, and Davies make a meal out of it and take advantage.
Whether it was a foul or not is up to the referee.
As far as Davies diving, he was going to go down on contact when he was running at that speed and there was a body in front of him, but “dove” before the contact. That could either be a dive or just avoiding contact to avoid injury. The fact that I can’t tell on a replay just shows how hard it is to tell and how good players are at making it difficult to tell.
So to reach all of these conclusions about Davies character by going down 0.1 seconds before he would have gone down anyway seems a little ludicrous to me.
I’m sure the defender you all are all bailing out is happy though.
I agree
The defender never touched the ball while sliding in with his thigh up at Davies knee level. Had Davies continued running full speed into his leg, there would not have been any debate of a penalty. So Davies jumped over his leg and he’s a villain?
The defender should not have challenged so recklessly, but Wingert is getting a free pass on this.
injury prediction
I think this projection of an unlikely-but-possible future injury is a farfetched rationalization after-the-fact.
Why then was he (literally) diving forward to avoid injury when merely hopping over the foot is a safer way to avoid the tackle?
If he "hops over"...
…he is then denied the goal-scoring chance AND the penalty that should have but wouldn’t have been called. No WAY the ref calls a penalty without some contact….so, you get what happened here.
I hate diving as much as the next (American) guy. But the reality is that in this kind of situation, where the defender is coming in with NO chance at the ball, I’m not going to kill the guy over it.
Oh, and Jones had contact. Let’s see those of you blasting him take off running full speed and let me kick your heel…see how well you keep your momentum and balance.
Not an Easy Call for Refs
The viewing angle means everything. TV viewers knew Davies flopped because one of the camera angles was head on to the play. The lack of defender/attacker contact was clear. Not so for the ref, who was behind the play and off to the left. The assistant had a nearly 90-degree view of the play. Both were in proper position. Neither could clearly see the lack of contact as Davies made a meal of the situation. In the future, Davies will likely have to show blood to get penalty call in the area.
