I actually was sent a request much quicker then I thought! The user asked me: "Is Cristiano Ronaldo a diver, and if so why does he dive?"
Whether you worship Ronaldo or you despise him, I think it is pretty much impossible to ignore the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo is indeed a diver, and a great one at that. However, the second part of the question requires a bit more thinking. Why does Cristiano Ronaldo dive?
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best football players in the world, he won the FIFA world player two years ago. By being such an important player, it is very important to "protect" him. By "protecting" him, I mean that it is important to penalise anybody with the intentions of injuring him. Cristiano Ronaldo is fully aware of this. When a defender attempts to take the ball from Ronaldo (whether it's a slide tackle or a regular tackle), it is not rare to see Ronaldo slightly (or completely) exaggerate his fall. There is a reason for this. Being the "star player" for Real Madrid Cristiano Ronaldo knows that when a penalty must be taken, he will be the player taking the penalty; when a free kick must be taken, he will be the player taking the free kick.
Why does this matter?
It's simple, Ronaldo needs to score goals, he is a ball hawk and is constantly attempting to score goals. By "diving" Ronaldo is given the opportunity to score his desired goal. Ronaldo knows that the pressure on the referee after getting fouled is high. Ronaldo knows that the referee is aware that if he were to misjudge a call on "the" Cristiano Ronaldo, the media would roast him before Ronaldo hit the ground. "CR7" usually is given the foul and that's where he comes in. It is not a coincidence that Ronaldo is the worlds best free kick taker and also the worlds best diver. They go hand in hand. If you have ever watched Ronaldo practice, you have seen that Ronaldo dedicated a large portion of his practice to free kicks. He practices free kicks more than most because he knows that the chances are that the referee will blow a few free kicks and possibly a penalty in his favor. Ronaldo now either tips in the easy penalty, or puts to use his long hours of free kick practice to score a free kick.
Last season Cristiano Ronaldo scored 33 goals. 4 penalties and 6 free kicks.
These numbers don't include the preseason where, where he scored 3 more goals... 2 of which were also penalty's. So if you take all of Ronaldo's goals from last season (preseason and regular season) the stats change to:
36 goals, 6 penalties, and 6 free kicks.
That's a total of 12 goals from a dead play...
in other words, last season 1 out of every 3 goals that Ronaldo scored was either a penalty or a free kick!
This season Ronaldo has scored 10 goals so far, 3 penalties and 2 free kicks.. that's a total of 5 goals from a dead play..
in other words, so far this season 1 out of every 2 goals that Ronaldo scores is either a penalty or a free kick!
It begins to make sense why Cristiano Ronaldo dives now, doesn't it?
-PLANET SERGI!
