Forbes said taking a dive or faking an injury is commonplace in sports. However, football would be the sport notorious for players who flop, with some for the purpose of earning a favorable call from the referee. This year's World Cup was no exception.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Brazilians emerged as the top scorers in this year's World Cup, but for a different reason. In the 32 games the paper has studied, it has observed that there were 302 players who, at one point, went down in apparent pain, or ball up in a fetal position or lie down on the ground lifeless. Due to these dramatic episodes, it has cost the tournament a total of 132 minutes of game clock. But after sorting through those that were legitimate falls, the numbers are still significant at 293 cases at 118 minutes and 21 seconds.
WSJ calculated writhing time by the time a referee blows the whistle because of a potential injury to the moment the supposedly injured player stands up.
Brazil emerged as the top team who had suffered an apparent injury. Neymar himself was spotted to have five injuries on the field. In every case, the star player was observed to be back on his feet within 15 seconds upon contact, the paper said. Chile came in at a close second at 16, and Honduras followed, although clocked the longest team their players collectively writhe on the ground in apparent pain at 7 minutes and 40 seconds. WSJ said that five minutes and 10 seconds of the total time happened during the first half of the team's match against France.
The US came in fifth at 12 injuries and wasting 6 minutes and 24 seconds of game clock.
The toughest team on the field at the World Cup goes to Bosnia and Herzegovia, of which the paper spotted two instances players had dropped down in purportedly agony due to hard contact, all at a total time of 24 seconds. Surprisingly, Portugal joins the Netherlands as the second toughest teams in the tournament at 4 supposed injuries, but drew more time than the Dutch at 1 minute and 49 seconds total to 1 minute and 39 seconds.
It is not known whether FIFA has imposed measures to restrict such flopping. But given what little amount of time in decision-making on the field, it would already cause scandal if the world soccer body decides to give power to the referees in penalizing players who fake their injuries in order to get ahead.
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