Sporting memories: When faking a foul backfired on me in football/soccer

When I was growing up my family kind of encouraged all of the kids to focus on as many sports as possible. While I was good at all the sports I attempted other than baseball for some reason, football of the soccer variety emerged as the one that I excelled at the most.

This was identified by my parents and other parents, who at a young age took me out of the public soccer competitions and put me into private ones. This was because I wasn't being challenged and was foolin' around and still scoring 2 or 3 goals a game.

When I moved to private leagues, things changed a lot.

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When you get into private leagues, or at least the way it was back in the 80's, you all of a sudden have access to private coaching from coaches that actually know what the hell they are doing. Often, these coaches grew up overseas and hadn't been subjected to the "American version of soccer" which was more like American football than it was like football football.

So when I was in private league I received and education about fouls, and how to draw fouls or even fake them in order to get good field positioning. I hate that this is part of the game but watch any professional game of soccer/football and you will see that it definitely is part of the game.

This wasn't something I utilized very often, but I will admit I ended up getting a few free kicks that I didn't really deserve and several Penalty Kicks because of it as well. I'm not proud of those goals, but it wasn't me that came up with the system. The officiating is so tricky in soccer/football that honestly, we are asking entirely too much of the one official on the field. I think games are more accurately called in other sports where there are many officials on the field at all times.

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While my dives were not as awful as Robben's famous one in the World Cup (which will follow him like a ghost for the rest of his life-and rightfully so) it was me turning up the acting a bit too far. A defender went for the ball that I had moved and when he made contact with my legs I went flying. To be honest I jumped, then rolled, just like I had been taught.

Now to be fair, this was a foul, but the dude barely made contact with me. Since I knew that USA officials are very unlikely to award penalty kicks I knew I needed to ham it up a bit. I got the call and the PK, but apparently I overplayed my hand because my coach, who was not a talented coach at all as this was back playing with my high school team and not in private league, was extremely concerned for my well-being and instead of letting me stretch it out a bit on the field or on the sidelines, he removed me from the game in order to prevent horrible injury that wasn't even real to begin with.

I knew that he would frown upon the fact that I took a dive because that particular coach probably learned how to coach soccer from a textbook earlier that year and he would view diving as a horrible cheating aspect of the game. I view it that way but I also understand that if the other team IS using it, and you do NOT, you are at a huge disadvantage.

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I probably spent too much time messing with my ankle on the ground and the coach out of genuine concern for losing his best player, sidelined me for the rest of the game.

The person who took "my" kick missed and we lost that game.

I have never been a fan of diving, even when it worked in my favor. I don't like those memories because I was cheating. However, I would be remiss if I didn't admit that this advantageous field positioning with free kicks that weren't necessarily deserved, seriously helped my team as well as my own prospects for going to college for free on an athletic scholarship (which I ended up doing.)

So I look back on that particular fake foul with a tinge of cringe, as they say, and I am really happy that smartphones or even conveniently transportable cameras of any sort, didn't exist at the time.

I do look back on all of those goals that I scored or set up to be scored because of diving with a bit of regret though. Unfortunately though, it is part of the game and you basically have to do it until the rules get changed, which I wish they would.

That incident was the only time I hammed it up so much on a foul though, and I learned from it. It wasn't the last time I dived, but it was the most elaborate and over-acted. To this day it remains one of my strongest memories of participating in the sport though, and I relive that moment often when trying to go to sleep.