Far be it for me to defend Italian soccer in general. Every stereotype your soccer-bashing friends throw in your face is prevalent in the Italian game — nasty fans, match-fixing scandals, bad hair, exaggerated injuries and, of course, diving.
But diving to imply a foul that doesn’t exist and falling down to draw attention to an actual foul are two different things. The first is reprehensible. The second is more difficult to judge.
In the first half today, New Zealand’s Tommy Smith had a good handful of Daniele de Rossi’s shirt. De Rossi fell. Referee Carlos Batres of Guatemala whistled for a penalty kick.
Those are the facts. The interpretations varied.
While it’s easy to pile on Italy and particularly de Rossi, whose most notable contribution to a World Cup is a rearrangement of Brian McBride’s face, de Rossi’s actions don’t change the fact that a foul occurred. De Rossi could’ve pulled out a guitar and vuvuzela for a new folk song decrying the injustice that had befallen him, and he may have received a yellow for unsporting conduct. But the PK was still justified.
It’s not as if shirt-pulling in the box is some newly outlawed activity. Remember 1998, when U.S. referee Esse Baharmast was vilified and then exonerated when evidence emerged that he had indeed seen a shirt pulled in the Norway-Brazil game.
Wouldn’t all rather see refs be even stricter on such plays? After a few days of discussing Slovenia defenders bear-hugging American players in the box, a stronger stand on such contact seems justified.
Batres, to his credit, made the right call here. And he ignored a lot of less justified Italian tumbles.
Now if only we could go back and get rid of the blatant dive that saw Italy past Australia in 2006 …
Duresport.com 
There really isn’t an excuse for a shirt grab in the box. It’s just never worth the risk for the reward. A shirt grab is the easiest kind of foul for the ref to see. You could have held the guy and gotten just as much slow-down with much less chance of the ref whistling it.
Really? If it’s such an egregious foul, why is this the first time it’s been called in WC in ANY game so far? Why is it I’ve NEVER seen it called in an MLS game? I agree, it should be a foul, but it ain’t according to today’s standards. Far more egregious is the constant diving for attention. I’d rather see these guys play like men, fight through a foul, and trust the ref to call it if it has an affect.
Swansuite: Esse Baharmast, 1998 World Cup. See the link above. Besides, it’s pretty obvious in the Laws of the Game. “Holding an opponent.”
That said, I can’t argue if you say players are better off fighting through it. I saw one case earlier in the Cup in which Cristiano Ronaldo was just about through on goal, and he decided to dive instead. That’s just awful. If the instinct were to remain upright and keep going, he’d keep going. And maybe de Rossi stays upright here and either gets a PK call or scores.