In 24 minutes of Spanish Super Cup action on Sunday, Cristiano Ronaldo accomplished what many could never achieve over the course of their entire careers. The mercurial forward has always shown an appetite for amassing marks of renown, but Sunday’s first leg at the Camp Nou had something for everyone in the spectrum of The Cristiano Ronaldo Experience.
What a goal.
The Champions League and Europa League have used end-line assistants for a few years now. The Confederations Cup used VAR this summer, and Major League Soccer will start using video review on Saturday. The English Premier League has popularized goal-line technology and this year will have a panel to suspend those who dive or feign injury.
It’s taken a while, but soccer is finally getting its shit together when it comes to officiating the game.
Nobody likes a big decision more than MLS official Baldomero Toledo. Toledo once set the precedent for what would happen if a player ever took off their jersey only to reveal another jersey underneath — he brandished a second yellow and sent the player off.
Here’s what happened between Bahia defender Lucas Fonseca and Flamengo striker Paolo Guerrero on Sunday night, as recreated by The Matrix. Fonseca came sprinting at Guerrero and said something like:
Fonseca proceeded to kick him, so Guerrero wasn’t pleased, and Guerrero said:
The ghost of Sergio Ramos climbed the podium at the Millennium Stadium and provided one of the greatest feel good stories of 2017 by somehow lifting the UEFA Champions League trophy despite being a completely immaterial spirit.
In one of the most tragic and horrific incidents in Champions League history - although justice was properly and promptly administered by German referee Felix Brych - the Real Madrid captain passed into the afterlife before our very eyes after Juan Cuadrado’s HORROR TAP combusted his back, legs and face.
With most domestic leagues moving towards the use of video evidence to retroactively ban players for simulation and feigning injury, and with the gradual implementation of Video Assistant Referees to stamp out the behavior altogether, football's greatest evil is heading out the door.
However, it’s literally leaving kicking and screaming like a petulant two-year-old that’s been denied viewing one more train on YouTube. The latest, and perhaps greatest, has come from 34-year-old former Serbian international Danko Lazovic in the Hungarian league.
Today, May 18, 2017 — a date which will live in history — the Football Association voted, in unison, to introduce retrospective two-match bans for players found guilty of diving or feigning injury, an offense which heretofore was a shameful stain upon our beloved game.