Foul Tactics in Soccer, Cricket, Sport … Yuck!

Will Swanton, from The Weekend Australian, 7-8 July 2018, where the title is “When Our Heroes cross the Line”

The Socceroos are playing Italy at the 2006 World Cup. Lucas Neill slides into a tackle on Fabio Grosso. His left elbow and hand make contact with the Azzurri player’s legs. Grosso goes down with the theatricality of Macbeth being slain by Macduff. The referee blows his whistle for a penalty. Francesco Totti kicks the last-minute goal and the Australians are on their way to the airport. All because of Grosso’s con job.

The Boomers Daniel Kickert

It’s a famous moment in Australian sport. The most potent of all Socceroos teams has threatened to beat a powerhouse of the global game and reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup for the first time.

Grosso has milked a penalty. Begged for it. Pleaded for it. If a mate in the weekend warriors, the Over 45s, tries to cheat like this at your local park, the bludger will be told to get back to his feet and stop bunging it on. If a child behaves so desperately and hysterically, you’ll tell the little ratbag that faking a foul is no way to win.

But in professional sport? There’s a different line to be crossed. A more lenient line. A line that Grosso has cared little for; a line that Australia’s cricketers have ignored this year; a line that an Australian basketballer has marched straight on through. They’ve all embarrassed themselves. Lost the plot.

But it ain’t surprising in a results-driven business. They’ve been blinded by the sort of mantra encapsulated by Essendon’s fateful club slogan before the AFL club was busted for the use of performance-enhancing drugs: “Whatever It Takes”.

The elbow to the face of a Philippines’ opponent, Roger Ray Pogoy, by the Boomers’ Daniel Kickert is a prime example of an athlete going too far with the thing that has made him successful.

He has caved to the extreme side of the aggressive personality characteristics that usually serve him well. He has gone too far. He is not the first and he won’t be the last. Pressure can take any athlete to the limit.

When the initial shock of the brain explosion subsides, it becomes a wonder that complete meltdown doesn’t occur more often. As Mike McNamee, a former president of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport, once said of athletes going too far: “When you put competitive people in a competitive situation, it’s going to happen.”

Athletes have always spoken about the line that cannot be crossed when it comes to on-field behaviour. The line has been an elusive old thing. Anyone actually seen it? It’s manoeuvred and moved and shaped to suit one athlete’s needs before another athlete plonks it somewhere else. It’s an incredibly flexible old thing, too.

Australian cricketers used the line to defend their conduct before all hell broke loose in South Africa.

A week before vice-captain David Warner, captain Steve Smith and batsman Cameron Bancroft blew the line to smithereens, Smith defended Warner’s win-at-all-costs mentality by saying: “Davey plays well when he’s aggressive and he gets into a contest. He has to be careful not to cross the line. Sometimes you can go over the line and that’s not what we want to see. I can’t promise it’s not going to happen again but we’ll be doing our best to ensure our behaviour’s in a good place. Nobody wants to cross the line.”

Which made us think, where is this line? Match-fixing and drug-cheating are obviously on the wrong side of the line. Otherwise, is there actually a line? Maybe that’s the beauty of the line. There is no line!

But then three of the most unsavoury sporting acts of the year come along and they all involve Australians, and the truth about the line becomes crystal clear. You can see the line only when someone has moved over it.

The flannelled fools in the Test cricket side crossed the line by cheating in South Africa. Tennis player Nick Kyrgios used a water bottle to mimic masturbation on the hallowed turf of the Queen’s Club in London. He has been fined $23,000 by the Association of Tennis Professionals for an “obscene act” that definitely has crossed the line.

Australia’s basketballers have been caught up in a bar-room brawl masquerading as a World Cup qualification match against The Philippines. The match has gained worldwide notoriety and yet again has blown the line to smithereens. One Boomer has played a key role. When Kickert runs at Pogoy after the Filipinos’ crude shove of Australia’s Chris Goulding, he unleashes a brutal elbow that deserves to be in a cage fight. Once Kickert has crossed the line so emphatically, the Filipinos follow him in. Nothing excuses what happens next. The outright thuggery of the Philippines players, officials and fans who have attacked Goulding like a pack of wild dogs is disgraceful behaviour.

But without Kickert’s blatant crossing of the line as a player, there is no street fight afterwards.

And yet. And yet. As Basketball Australia chief executive Anthony Moore says, “These things happen.” Moore is disappointed by Kickert’s actions but he also understands it’s the action of an athlete in the heat of the moment.

The violence from Filipino staff and spectators is what has enraged the Australians more than the actions of Pogoy.

Because bad blood is in part what draws us to sport. Why is State of Origin rugby league the highest rating show on TV? The hatred in it. The knowledge they’ll do anything to win. They hope, as much as we don’t like to admit it, that the first scrum will become another bar-room brawl.

The irony is that certain athletes are brought undone by the traits that also make them successful. The aggression. The powers of intimidation. Former NSW Origin captain Paul Gallen is lauded as one of the great enforcers of the game. Yet there have been times when he has used too much force: pulling at the stitches of a rival player, for instance.

Diving soccer players such as Brazil’s Neymar, whose antics have been pathetic in Russia this year, are surrendering to the emotion that also serves them well. The qualities that ensure an athlete can survive the dog-eat-dog world of professional sport are also the qualities that threaten to do him in. The strength as a weakness. Warner pushing one too many boundaries. Kyrgios wanting to be a punk in a sport that is normally rather pristine. Kickert going overboard in his role as a hit man. They deserve all the criticism and punishments they have received. They also warrant a little understanding. For better or worse, it is part of who they are.

We want their white-line fever. We want their emotion. We can’t be too surprised when the force occasionally becomes excessive. Warner’s rat-cunning has served him well. But the cunning has brought him undone.

Kyrgios’s rebelliousness may lead him to the Wimbledon title — if it doesn’t knock him out. Kickert’s physicality has made him a Boomer — and it’s about to have him banned from the Boomers. Macbeth’s appetite for murder led to his own. They’re all variations of the same dramatic themes.

We want the unpredictability of these people. The frailties. The dark sides. We’re not condoning the violence or the cheating. We’re not absolving Warner. We’re not nominating Kyrgios for man of the year. We’re not suggesting Kickert doesn’t deserve a long and sobering suspension. But these sorts of characters, and their failures, are part of what makes the sporting world go round.

What of Grosso now? How does he view his con job? “It’s been a long time since 2006 but I say this with as much sincerity as I possibly can. In this instance when Neill slid in, maybe I accentuated it a little bit,” he says with glee in an interview with an Italian soccer magazine. “I felt the contact, so I went down. Therefore, I say again, I didn’t initiate it. It’s true that I felt the touch and didn’t have the strength to go forward. Some people believe me and some don’t. I admit that it wasn’t glamorous but it wasn’t as much of a scandal as everyone thought.”

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11 COMMENTS in THE AUSTRALIAN

NEWEST | OLDEST | TOP COMMENTS

Adam1 DAY AGO

To complex, too many influences driven by too many stakeholders, to much money and way too many egos. This isn’t get fixed within my life tim

greg2 DAYS AGO

There is a strong correlation between bad behaviour and highly paid sportsmen and women. Look at the money being paid to cricketers now after an ugly Stoush with Cricket Australia. Poor behaviour is often the outcome. Don’t be surprised be disgusted instead. This won’t be the last we hear of this from sports people when they are rewarded far in excess of what they deserve. Just like Bank CEO’s

Geoffrey ..………………..2 DAYS AGO

When I was screwed out of a substantial sum of money in the US many years ago , I was looked in the eye by the perpetrator of this contract defying act, who said “ you understand, it’s just business”! This attitude seems to permeate everything from business to sport these days – very sad.

James ………………..2 DAYS AGO

You’ll never get us all to agree with one side or the other , it’s hard to see beyond the team you support? Fair minded supporters are not sooks, just want their side to win against all odds but not necessarily in the ‘whatever it takes ‘ mentality .

Boo Radley…………………..2 DAYS AGO

Still hurting over Manny getting beaten. Decals? they just wanted a fight.

Rob’…………………..t2 DAYS AGO

Give this a rest. You keep trying to get us outraged about the basketball incident. Fact is, we don’t care. There are real things to worry about

Philip…………………….2 DAYS AGO

@Rob’t Don’t lump everyone else into your comment. I care, that’s why I read this article.

Bob…..…………………..2 DAYS AGO

Its not unique to sport. Why do you think there is a banking Royal Commission? A corrupted culture in financial services where winning trumps what is fair and reasonable. Same with the mainstream media defending defamation proceedings ad nauseum. Someone stepped over the line.

David ………………2 DAYS AGO

@Bob why not start at the top, look at the money politicians rort from the system.

Kate …. 2 DAYS AGO

When sports’ officials will go to enormous lengths to get talented and highly paid sportsmen who have behaved badly (and at times criminally) off a charge because they’re needed on the field and because they do not want said bad behaviour to reflect badly on the sport, then is it any wonder that some sportsmen think they are above the law? Australian sports’ administrators have a lot to answer for.

Jason S …………..2 DAYS AGO

The Phillipines basketball team and their coach should be banned for life. The Australian players simply defended themselves against disgraceful deliberate attacks. Who cares whether anyone is surprised rather than tar all professional sports people with the same brush call this for what it was deliberate premeditated attacks on opposing players

Foul Tactics in Soccer, Cricket, Sport … Yuck!

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