The art of deception

I’ve seen it. It was horrible and it was gorgeous. The first totally outrageous but superbly achieved penalty-dive of the Champions League season occurred in the 28th minute of last night’s second-leg tie between Arsenal and Celtic. It was a thing of complicated beauty, of exhilarating awfulness, of curious and furious energies. The Arsenal forward Eduardo chased into the area after a ball that was rushing away from him, tripped over a blade of grass and collapsed like a stricken fawn beneath the blamelessly splayed hands of Boruc, the Celtic goalie. Eduardo’s theatrics duped the ref who pointed immediately at the penalty spot, ignoring the Broadmoor-standard convulsions of anger from Celtic’s outraged defence. The kick was taken, by Eduardo himself, before a grandstand heaving with hate-filled Celtic indignants, one of whom tried to even things up by shining a laser in Eduardo’s eyes. The Arsenal con-man sauntered forward, sent the goalie the wrong way, and patted the ball into the net. I don’t support Arsenal but I have to admire the flawless brilliance of this strike. Poor old Boruc, in paroxysms of rage, picked up the dead ball and kicked it at the face of the moon. The aggregate score stood at 3-0. Arsenal’s victory was effectively sealed.

Three more goals followed. Eboue’s strike in the 53rd minute was a team-effort of sinuous loveliness: the unpredictable complexity of the build-up play and the off-beat but logical strangeness of its execution gave every viewer that magical momentary heart-lift all football fans crave.

Arshavin scored a decent third goal and Donati hammered in a late consolation for Celtic, hitting a ridiculously improbable full-volley from what looked like a position half-way up the tunnel.

Afterwards no one talked about these fine goals. It was the dive. The dive was the only talking-point. Arsene Wenger claimed to believe it wasn’t a dive. Blushingly, haltingly, incredibly, he defended Eduardo’s tactics. ‘But we would not have complained if it had not been given’, he added, juggling his pluperfect subjunctives as niftily as one of his forwards claiming a non-existent foul.

Robbie Earle, the post-match pundit on ITV, devoted several minutes to the dive. Various angles were shown. Close-up footage revealed Eduardo’s guilty smirk as the wrong verdict was given. Celtic defenders were seen, one of them harrying and jostling Eduardo nastily, another facetiously congratulating him on his consummate play-acting. Only after the dive had been analysed and celebrated could the discussion turn to the passages of lawful play. Why? Why is the successful cheat more noteworthy than the law-abiding toiler who scores lovely and legal goals? Because football occupies a weird parallel universe. It’s the very best and the very worst of sports. All other athletic pursuits are about love – about loving the players, the achievements, the game. In football it’s about hate – hating the opposition, hating the supporters, hating the manager, (especially if he used to be your manager and you used to love him).  

The cheat is interesting because he is detestable instantly, whereas the lawful player is just boringly admirable. The tospy-turvy extremity of feeling generated by football affects everyone. Even people who ignore sport will cheerfully admit to ‘hating’ football with a passion that would seem bonkers if applied to, say, badminton or synchronised swimming. It’s the depth and universality of our hatred that makes football special. It attracts extreme emotions, and extreme wages too, which is why it’s futile to object to soaring Premiership salaries.

Excessive riches are right for a sport which is a ceremony of excess. What’s good for football is good for us all. Let the stars earn colossal sums, spend them, gamble them, waste them. That’s their function. Let them have more opportunities to crash their cars, dodge their drug-tests, punch their photographers, beat their wives, bilk their debts, ravish their lapdancers and wallow in their tasteless materialism. The worse they behave the stronger our hate becomes. And deep down – this is the sad truth – we are all football fans. We have the football fan’s instincts. The more we hate, the happier we are.