The Lying Dutchman

Arjen Robben has looked like a fleet-footed sixty-five year-old ever since he arrived at Chelsea a decade ago. A mazy, tricksy, old-school winger he was, in the last Jose Mourinho team that could ever have been called entertaining. Some of us were hugely impressed with everything he did, and at the time Chelsea's designated diver was Didier Drogba so we hadn't seen him at his worst.

But no player spends ten years in the game without learning a thing or to. Arjen is now just about the most terrifying attacking player any defender left in the World Cup can face. Only Messi is as dangerous running with the ball at his feet. 

However, there's an additional peril when Robben comes bob-bob-bobbing along the edge of the penalty area. Will the scrawny dancing pensioner throw himself to the floor like some hoodlum has just knifed him and swiped his shopping trolley? Erm... yes. Yes, he will. Almost certainly. 

Robben's simulation is so ingrained now I wouldn't be surprised if he's the only man on the planet who could successfully fake an orgasm.  Referees are of course wise to his skulduggery, but unfortunately he is the sort of player who is likely to get fouled by defenders struggling to contain his pace and footwork. So it's hard for the officials. 

Indeed the winning penalty against Mexico probably was a foul, although not one that deserved the now ubiquitous chest-out, arms flailing, Munck's The Scream-faced histrionics that go along with every infringement against the Lying Dutchman. 

This time the perpetually fallen idol has admitted that yes, he did do a dive in the game and that he can only apologise for it. Which, given this bloke's track record, is like stealing a million quid and admitting to £10 worth of it. 

Regular readers will know this is a HUGE FUCKING BUGBEAR of mine and has been since the Gelled Tumbler of Madeira stumbled onto the green fields of England - actually since Francis Lee hurled his tubby frame into the quagmires of Maine Road and the Baseball Ground in the 1970's. 

The debate rages as to what we can do about this. The most facile argument put forward by pundits - particularly those of the forward variety - is the conclusion that if after viewing the slow-mo footage from thirty-seven thousand angles it becomes plain that 'there was contact' then the forward is, apparently, entitled to go down. 

In other words, no one can blame you for pretending that a waft of an eyelash has deprived of the ability to behave normally. It's like the response of some particularly neurotic wife during divorce proceedings. "He had his hand on her arm, so I'm entitled to deduce that there was a full-blown affair going on." 

Another way of looking at this, and Marquez is being accused of being dim-witted in the Holland-Mexico game, is that 'if you leave your foot in, someone will go over it'. So as a defender your best bet with Robben when he's in the box is to get the fuck out of the way and hope he misses (either the goal or your innocent withdrawn tootsies). 

If you do get lazy about this, you defenders, then, well you know, even though most able-bodied people learnt to walk when they were fifteen months old and have coped pretty well ever since, you can't expect a footballer to remember this fact once he moves into that treacherous place we all know as the penalty area. 

On behalf of 90% of viewers I hereby say this to any Costa Rican centre-back. As far as I'm concerend tou are ENTITLED to make as much CONTACT as you damn well like on Arjen Robben cos it doesn't matter whether you get him or not, he's going down. 

So with all this mealy-mouthed excusing of what is essentially a determination to buy a decision from the ref using years of cynically obtained nous, it's now over to FIFA to try once more to apply some sort of moral code to the situation. Yep once again football is caught between the cross hairs of FIFA and Fair Play. (Hilarious, isn't it? If the bidding procedure to host their bloody tournaments could operate fairly that might be a start.)

Any hoo, as I've said TOO MANY TIMES before, there is one thing the overseers of the beautiful game could do immediately. Retrospective bans for divers. Every serious incidence of cheating or foul play that officials miss during the actual game can be punished retrospectively. Only simulation seems to have a special place in the administrators foetid hearts. 

Oh we can all tell nasty biting gauchos to take four months off: eating people is wrong, and certainly not part of the fabric of football. But diving...? Well, you know, everyone does it, don't they? Yes, they bloody well do, but let's not let them. All right you can't change the result of the game that's gone, but you can at least mitigate against it becoming the way to win the next one.

Here's option 1: (the cowardly option)

Robben starts the next game with a yellow card to his name. Even the remotest bogus stagger and he's off. job done. 

Option 2: (a better option)

Give Robben a retrospective red card for the dive he admitted to. And ban him for three games. He'd be out of the tournament. Holland would be scuppered. Job done. 

Option 3: (I've touted it before and I think it might be the best of the three)

If a player is proven to be, or admits to being, a diver, they should dress like a diver - wetsuit, mask, snorkel, flippers, the whole nine yards... and then they still have to play the next game. As my old man used to say, there's nothing wrong with that lad that a bit of public humiliation couldn't put right. 

And of course, the biggest sadness is that, if you took the falling over out of Robben's game he'd be the best player in the tournament up to now (yep, including Lionel and the Baby-Faced Colombian). The fact that he so regularly cheats makes him one of the worst.