Named and shamed: the divers who blight football in Scotland

Berlitz would not need to use up all of its 30 languages, but its specialist skills would be required. Including one in Scots. Diving has suddenly become the hot topic in the Premierleague after the public outcry about Heart of Midlothian’s recent affliction to the disease.

Rudi Skacel was the subject of so much scorn from the Falkirk players last Saturday after his dreadful playacting — perhaps he was playing charades? (“it’s a film, two words, second one sounds like clown; that’s it, Falling Down) — that the club’s management team are to have a word with the Czech Republic player about his future behaviour.

“Rudi has been a massive part of what we’ve done so far but we know there’s a wee bit of baggage that comes with him that might need to be addressed,” John McGlynn, the assistant coach, who is now joint caretaker with Valdas Ivanauskas after the sacking of Graham Rix, said. “It’s up to Valdas what he says but it’s maybe the right thing to do.”

Skacel is not the first Hearts player to get into trouble for diving. His compatriot, Roman Bednar, was sent off in the Tennent’s Scotttish Cup quarter-final against Partick Thistle — he misses this weekend’s semi-final against Hibernian as a result — for diving as he rounded Kenny Arthur, the goalkeeper.

Edgaras Jankauskas was sent off in a derby at Easter Road for collecting two yellows, one of which was for diving. Deveidas Cesnauskis, another Lithuania international, was also booked at Dunfermline Athletic for the same crime.

Now, before Tynecastle fans begin to roar about their team being the victims of a media campaign, it has to be said that this is an issue that been simmering all season and has only now boiled over because it has become such a frequent backdrop to Hearts games.

Jankauskas, Cesnauskas and Mikoliunas are the three worst offenders but the Czech pair have come to the fore recently. Worse than that, it has spread to Scottish players, too.

Steven Pressley sparked outrage at Dundee United when his dive won a late penalty. Andy Webster has recently incorporated this into his game, part of the trend of diving defenders — more of which later — who go down on cue in their own box to win a foul and alleviate pressure. The Scotland centre-back feigned injury against John Hartson when television clearly showed there was no contact, but hitting the deck against mighty Partick Thistle of the second division in the recent cup-tie took the new philosophy to extremes.

“It’s a preconception that foreign players come here and dive about all over the place. That is something that goes on in all games,” Craig Gordon, the Hearts and Scotland goalkeeper said yesterday, as he defended Skacel. “To say it’s just a foreign thing, I don’t think that’s true.”

Too true, Craig. The Times conducted a vigorous antidiving campaign in the Barclays Premiership two months ago, with “No To Diving” posters being put up in several languages at various clubs. The SPL would not just need Czech and Lithuanian but also Greek, Japanese, Danish and even Aussie. It would also need one in its native tongue — what about “Gonnae naw dae that!” — to cater for the local miscreants.

Skacel was not the only one diving last Saturday. A quick look at the Premierleague highlights saw Barry Wilson con a penalty against Hibernian at Easter Road. The Inverness Caledonian Thistle forward was so adept at making it look as if he was brought down by Gary Caldwell, but the trick is to look at the forward’s feet — if they go together before take off, he’s dived; no one who is tripped unwittingly ever goes down so cleanly.

The old line about there “being contact” is as out of date as Mitre Mouldmasters. The game has come a long way. Players are now as capable of engineering that contact by falling at the right moment or sticking a leg out to brush the defender they are going past. Twenty years ago, players who could curl the ball over a wall were few and far between; now everyone can and the same applies to simulation.

If Scotland can stamp out smoking, surely it can do the same to diving. It’s time to name and shame some of the worst offenders in the Premierleague: in no particular order, step forward — and, please, don’t fall when you do so — Scott McDonald, Peter Lovenkrands, Barry Robson, Edgaras Jankaukas (with nominations to Skacel, Webster, Bednar and Cesnauskas as best supporting actors), Shunsuke Nakamura and Sotirios Kyrgiakos.

McDonald takes a lot of rough treatment leading the line for Motherwell, but the fiesty little Australian also hands it out — he got away with a barge in Gary Caldwell’s back in the lead-up to a goal against Hibernian two weeks ago that a larger man would have been punished for. McDonald favours the sniper method, going down when brushed from behind.

Lovenkrands is currently a man on a roll, in terms of his goalscoring, but the Rangers winger is another who cannot stay on his feet when he goes past defenders. His reputation as an actor goes back to that Old Firm derby last season when he got Alan Thompson sent off for a headbutt that was more Glasgow Miss than Glasgow Kiss.

Barry Robson, of Dundee United, is a gifted dead-ball specialist, one of the best in the Premierleague. Unfortunately, he wins most of the free kicks himself in and around the box. For an endorsement, you have to only look to his peers — Robson was condemned by his former Inverness team-mates on the final day of last-season as he collapsed to win the penalty that ensured United’s survival. He was surrounded by an angry Highland mob that made Braveheart look tame.

Jankauskas, we’ve dealt with. Suffice to say that his time at FC Porto saw him learn the black arts under José Mournho. The Times has been on his case ever since his dive for Lithuania in Kaunas from a non-existent tackle from Jackie McNamara cost Scotland three points in the Euro 2004 qualifying campaign.

Shunsuke Nakamura is one those strange cases who are both victim and offender. Celtic’s elfin playmaker looked out of his depth, physically, when he first came to the Premierleague and there is no doubt, as Gordon Strachan continually points out, that the Japan player takes a bruising amount of sly kicks to his slender frame. However, he also drops far too easily and perhaps Stilian Petrov — a rehabilitated offender who has cast aside the bad ways he grew up with in Bulgaria — should have a word in Nakamura’s ear.

Last, but not least, Kyrgiakos. The man who crashes to the floor quicker than plates at a Greek wedding, is the Premierleague’s most addicted diver. The Rangers defender will dive anywhere on the pitch — one of his three dismissals this term, at Dundee United, included the habitual yellow for diving — but it is the former Panathinaikos player’s persistent use of the new curse, diving while in possession of the ball and running towards your own goal, usually with a forward just behind, that is the most irritating.

Alex McLeish had to tell one of Kyrgiakos’s former Ibrox colleagues, Gregory Vignal, to stop diving last season. One can only assume the long-haired Greek did not listen in this season. His repetitive simulation has become tiresome. If Roberto Baggio was the Divine Ponytail who embodied the beautiful game, it is Kyrgiakos, the Diving Ponytail, who is helping to scar its face.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk