Cristiano Ronaldo is an incredible footballer, blessed with size, speed, strength, foot skiils and awareness that would be the envy of pretty much anyone. Luis Suarez is also blessed in all these categories, just not as much as Ronaldo.
There is one skill, though, in which Ronaldo will never match Suarez's unbelievable talent: acting.
Ronaldo and Suarez each attempted dives during Sunday's Spanish Super Copa first leg. Suarez won a penalty (which Lionel Messi converted), but Ronaldo was given his second yellow card and dismissed from the match.
So what went wrong?
Ronaldo's dive was clearly a spur of the moment decision. He felt the contact, felt he didn't have a chance at the ball and threw himself (albeit gently) on the ground. Ronaldo does his best to make it look natural, even fooling ESPN's commentator into thinking it wasn't a dive, but Ronaldo got busted by the referee because he put himself in a situation in which diving was clearly the best option in footballing terms and so he dove.
Ronaldo only dives when it's in his best interest, which makes it very easy for referees to determine whether he's diving.
Suarez, on the other hand, is impossible to read because he is always acting. Every second on the pitch, he is acting. He is the Daniel-Day Lewis of footballers, unable to break character even when he isn't actually in a situation in which acting would make any sense.
He dives for the sake of diving, not for the sake of footballing, which means when he's put in a situation in which diving would be understood (although not necessarily encouraged), Suarez makes it difficult for referees to tell if he's embellishing contact that actually occurred or making it up out of nothing. Suarez makes it even more difficult by subtly encouraging negligible contact so he can roll around like a caught salmon.
Watch how he places his foot perfectly near Keylor Navas' outstretched arm, forcing the contact to be initiated without actually initiating it himself. From there, it's just a matter of falling down when Navas touches him and he's won a penalty. The only player in the world who does this even remotely as well as Suarez is Neymar.
Harry doesn't deserve an Oscar, the real winner over here is Luis Suarez pic.twitter.com/erb8xzyASm
— THANK YOU (@Larrylovebears) August 13, 2017
Suarez even kept up the antics while Sergio Ramos tenderly attempted to pull the Uruguayan to his feet and then said "the hell with it" and shoved Suarez back on the ground.
Hahahaha
lol @LuisSuarez9 beggars of penalty @FCBarcelona
hahaha Well done @SergioRamos #ElClassico #fcbrma pic.twitter.com/l6SiU7bJm8— Azaz Patel CR7 (@Azazpcr7) August 13, 2017
In short, Suarez is better at diving than Ronaldo because he does the legwork beforehand, not only going down under minimal contact, but putting himself in a position in which it's almost impossible to judge whether the contact was minimal, real or imagined in real time. He doesn't get the benefit of the doubt as often as he used to, but Suarez still wins penalties all the time because he is a master.
The18 Recommends For You
