- AP Photos
- If Brazilian soccer star Fred occasionally flops during World Cup action, he’s just following an age-old tradition.
Soccer sources who used to keep their mouths shut have finally flipped on the floppers.
Fred’s flop put flopping on the table. The debate wasn’t over whether Fred flopped; it was over whether the flop was so egregious that the ref should have let play continue. Instead, he blew his whistle; a penalty kick, a goal, and a 3-1 victory for Brazil over Croatia ensued; and the question was posed in all its amorality: if you don’t flop, can you win at soccer?
Americans prefer to manipulate referees through methods that are culturally indigenous. For instance, we prick their consciences. That grimace of pain that flickers on an American athlete’s face mid-game is not caused by a leg that was just broken, but by every American’s birthright—a deep, innate distress at injustice. The grimace asserts a wrong that only a makeup call can put right. Americans further manipulate refs by inquiring during lulls in the action about their wives, children, and recent fishing trips. American athletes take advantage of the fact that they’re darn nice guys and refs like them. Whatever the sport, foreign athletes can’t head down that road because they aren’t as likeable. Besides, the World Cup ref they hope to butter up probably speaks a different language.
And it was done. Let us not disdain the tribute paid to piety and tradition by a flopping soccer player when he asks higher authority to decide what is just.
