Name and Shame: Wolfsburg’s Diving Duo
By: Jan | December 8th, 2008The Culprit: Grafite (11 goals / 1 assist) and Edin Dzeko (5 goals / 7 assists)
The Team: VfL Wolfsburg
The Indictment: Chronically weak sense of balance.
The Evidence: See highlight video from this season below
The Verdict: Grafite has been in my bad books since last season already, as he doesn’t just perform the odd dive, but also wastes time when necessary and sometimes struggles to control his temper. He also befriended our Hamburg blogger Chris with a blatant dive, which helped Wolfsburg kick Hamburg out of the DFB-Pokal. Edin Dzeko could have gotten a legit free kick against Bayern I would say. But he decided to go for the penalty, extended his run into the box and then artificially made contact with his left leg to keep his penalty claim alive and it worked. So I approve of the claim that this was a dive. The most blatant and cynical dive was obviously the one against Cottbus. And I remember that Cottbus had controlled the first half and had just scored a goal, which was controversially ruled offside. So this dive turned the game on its’ head and thus was particularly cruel.
All in all, I’d grant Grafite entry into my personal Bundesliga Hall of Shame, which includes illustrious names such as Bayern’s Luca Toni and Hamburg’s David Jarolim. So he’s in good company. I’m impressed with Dzeko’s recent dive rate, but I want to see him consistently perform at such a high level over a whole season first.
Wolfsburg fans are of course invited to defend their players and say how frame #2345 in the above video proves that it was a clear penalty.
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Comments
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The delay between Dzeko’s supposed fouls and dives are so utterly mind-boggling they’re actually impressive. Wonder if it’s a speech impediment.
Posted from
United States
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Jan, I suppose Toni is in your Bundesliga Hall of Shame in view of the goal celebration he did after scoring against Hoffenheim. I was like thinking when watching the match ‘What is him doing?’. I was half-expecting him doing his trademark goal celebration. Never mind Toni scored what I called the killer goal which spoiled my prediction of a draw, given he finally scored a goal to make up for all that misses he had during the match itself.
Rapheal Honigstein wrote on the Guardian website of the match and what he wrote of Toni’s goal celebration – ‘Instead of unscrewing an imaginary light-bulb, he mimed firing a rifle around indiscriminately. You could read that as a coded apology: his performance in front of goal had been particularly scattergun earlier. “If we had lost, they would have blamed me,” admitted the Italian.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/dec/08/hoffenheim-bayern-munich
Regarding Grafite, I think I can finally see why you do not like him. And the song used in the video, very apt.
I wish I know the song though.Posted from
Singapore -
No, Luca Toni can celebrate whichever silly way he wants. His attempted dive against Hoffenheim would be a much better reason. And the fact that he actually regularly tries to con the ref means he’s in my Hall of Shame.
Posted from
Germany -
Oops, sorry. Getting the wrong idea over there. Anyhow, I remembered about the dive as well.
Posted from
Singapore -
It takes skill to trip yourself and get a penalty shot out of it!
Posted from
United States
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