It’s the first leg of the Copa Peru regional semi-finals; you’re 4-1 down with less than 10 minutes to play and you’ve had two men sent off. Do you:
A) Accept defeat and give up? Or,
B) Roll up your sleeves, puff out your chest and charge fearlessly at the opposition in search of three late goals?
If you’re Defensor Bolivar, you laugh in the face of such binary football thinking and go “blue sky”: you push the envelope, change your point of reference and develop a stratagem so cunning and underhand it makes Karl Rove look like a Boy Scout. In short, you choose the Third Way:
C) Fall to the floor like a child with a slightly grazed knee, writhe in agony for a few minutes, suggest four of your teammates do the same and wait for the referee to abandon the match.
Unbelievably, despite being so transparently cynical that even Mother Theresa would’ve struggled to sympathise, it worked. With fewer than seven players remaining on the pitch the referee was duly forced to abandon the match, though not before opponents La Bocana scored a magnificent Beckham-esque fifth against Bolivar’s “walking wounded.”
Defensor Bolivar and La Bocana are due to play their second-leg tie this Thursday, though the fixture is now in doubt as the Peruvian football authorities decide what punishment, if any, to mete out against Bolivar.
Our suggestion? Subject each faker to 30 minutes in a Hong Kong hotel room with Roy Keane: then they’ll know what real suffering feels like.
Here is footage from the match. For those so inclined, the faking starts at about 3:20 in the video.
