MUST WATCH: Why this is not the worst dive ever

Almost every body must have seen what is being claimed as perhaps the worst dive ever. Certainly, The Independent made no bones about it, with headlines blaring that it was a must watch incident!

For those of you who want to watch it on repeat mode, here is what happened:

But is it really the worst dive ever? As can be clearly seen, Arutro Vidal didn’t exactly dive. Rather, his foot got stuck in the turf causing him to trip over. Of course, the ensuing claims for penalty were ridiculous, but that’s beside the point.

And even if he did dive, this is certainly not the worst dive ever. The beautiful game of football has certainly given us some really theatrical dives. In fact, in the same game, Cristiano Ronaldo himself went down theatrically in the penalty box, thanks to what was at best a light touch by Giorgio Chiellini, earning a penalty for his team and ensuring a red for Chiellini.

People seem to have forgotten Gilardino’s dive in a Champions League match against Celtic. He took the ball past the defenders and the goal keeper, but inadvertently kicked the ball too hard. Seeing it was out of his reach, he theatrically fell down, earning a yellow for his troubles.

And if we go a little further back, we have Brazil’s star striker Rivaldo doing his best at winning an Oscar. In the World Cup match against Turkey, the opposition player returned the ball in frustration, hitting Rivaldo in the process. What happened next is near impossible to explain. The Turkish player was even sent off for it! How the referee and the linesman fell for it is beyond my understanding!

I am sure if one looks hard enough, there will be enough and more examples of players diving even more theatrically! So let’s not rush it and award Arturo Vidal with the best dive ever!