The worst divers in football

ALex Ferguson was moaning about divers without mentioning his pair of cheats, shame on The Independent for doing the same!

ronaldo 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

Rooney? your jokin arn't ya!! even Ronaldo's debatable (snigger) i mean, what is it with people picking on Manu U? Why it makes my custard curdle.

Normally you only had to look at him and he'd fall to the floor. How come he stayed out of the top 10?

Hey, how is it possible to have a great opportunity like this to list the worst divers in the game but seemingly focus on divers of the past?...How about current players?

How about Arjen Robben?...Cristiano Ronaldo?...Didier Drogba?...I mean, come on

The heading is very misleading, isn't it? I'll nail my colours to the mast here and now and state that i am a liverpool fan.
I am only new in here and so i don't want to be harsh. But this article is shockingly bad. i generally like these articles, but this one was very lazy journalism be someone who it seems doesnt watch much football but can find their way around youtube (apologies if i'm wrong).
It is important to bear in mind that most footballers will cheat if they can get away with it.
Michael owen is a player who, even when he was almost single handedly winning cups for liverpool (F.A. Cup 2001 v Arsenal), I never really liked. i always felt that his priority was the national team. now that he is with Man Utd i like him even less!!! But i really don't think that he could be accused of diving anymore than the average footballer.
GOD (Robbie Fowler) was a very honest player in the old school mould, before english football turned into a non contact sport. How he ends up in the top 10 i just don't know.
Steven Gerrard probably goes down a little bit easy at times, (i don't like it and cant condone), but no more than most.
So now I've pointed out why i dont agree with the list, and hope people agree with me, let me suggest a few players that i would include in my list:
Cristiano ronaldo...World player of the year....and a player that cant stand up in a gust of wind.
Didier Drogba.......A nasty cheat, but i think everyone knows
Arjen Robben
Eboue
gamst pedersen
Etc Etc
RANT OVER
Thank you

Good to see the swan-diving Steven Gerrard in here, but no C. Ronaldo? Tut tut.

I am surprised to see Owen on the list. Basically a very honest player though not so good at playing cards I believe. Remember him often staying on his feet when he was fouled in the area and could easily have gone down, especially as he is not the biggest player around.

They missed out van Nistelrooy, Rooney and C Ronaldo.

Oh wait, they all play for/played for Man U so I guess we cannot have the hakcs at the Indy upsetting SAF in case he boycotts the paper the same way he boycotts the Beeb.

No wonder I stopped paying money for this newspaper a good few years ago.

In 2002 I remember the Argentinian defender suddenly, cynically, sticking out his leg, at knee height, in front of Owen just before he was about to turn and score. It ever a dive in football deserved to be rewarded it was Owen's dive that day. It he hadn't dived he could have been injured.

In most sports, Rivaldo would have been fined for his reaction to the punishment, but as we all know FIFA have a blind spot concerning Brazil. In fact, they don't seem terribly interested in maintaining discipline at all during World Cup Finals. The 1990 final was a disgrace

Can't believe you left out last season's spectacular from Morten Gamst Pedersen for Blackburn against Arsenal. At least Match of The Day had the gumption to show it over and over again.

There is also a cracking sequence on the Fast Show video Fast Football, during which the point is made that diving did not start with foreign players joining English clubs. Watch it and weep for the "beautiful game"!

A list obviously compiled by a Chelsea fan. Dives by Drogba would take up all ten places in a Top Ten of Diving.

Owen dives more in internationals as does Joe Cole, usually around the penalty area for set pieces. Do it for England!

Wait till Fergie introduces him to the Carrington Diving Academy,Previous students Ruud and Ronaldo,both graduated with Honours.

Wot's he on about?The snappers look like a firing squad,Just what he deserved.

Liverpool were a goal to the Good at Arsenal and even the Commentator warned against giving the Ref an excuse for a Gunner pen,so There were actually 2 cheats at play here.

He looks like a poor add for an electric cattle prod,Wot a plonker.And the Clown with the whistle was no better.

The defender caught him,This is rubbish.

I bet Arsene didnt see this either.

Ingrained Honesty,How ironic it was at the home of Pires and Eduardo.

Where is the King?Ruud "won" a title mostly on the back of the his impressive Diving,He had diving down to a fine art,Apparently Jaap said in his Book that Sir had instructed them to Dive in European Competition so he had a top Tutor in Sir.

I would have thought you could have done a 1 - 10 of Steven Taylor's (Newcastle) dives alone, and he's a defender!

I can't remember who they were playing when he handled the ball on the line to give away the penalty and then threw himself backwards like he'd been shot but that just eclipses the Rivaldo mess for me. I've given up counting how many times he dived when watching The Magpies, but it seemed fitting they went down last year.

What an awful piece of journalism this is!! There have been plenty of dives and it has become an unacceptable part of the game ...... BUT far worse than each 'individual' dive mentioned in this piece are a) the serial divers; b) the lack of action from the so-called governing bodies and now c) a newspaper ignoring 'current' and 'most often offending players'.

The serial divers are easily listed by all football supporters and it's interesting to note how many of them have 'dived' whilst playing for the 'Big 4' in the Premiership ......... they have all been mentioned here, repeatedly, in the reader comments so how come the authorities can't spot them. The governing bodies should be charged with 'bringing the game in to disrepute' by their continual lack of action in so many aspects of cheating that are currently rife in the game. Add to this, a newspaper running this article and failing to provide a true picture (for whatever reason) ......... get some guts, the lot of you, and SORT IT OUT!!

Eduardo - one dive. Jeffers - WAS held by the defender although went down softly. Pires - I only saw him dive twice in his whole 6 year Arsenal career. Smacks of the same victimisation of Arsenal as is currently going on now. These plus the other dives I have seen by Arsenal players in the whole of Arsene Wenger's 13 years in charge at Arsenal add up to about the equivalent of one per season, wheras Ronaldo, van Nistelrooy, Drogba and Robben were comfortably achieving double figures individually per season at the height of their diving careers. One dive is too many for me but picking on Arsenal players is pathetic.
As people say, what about Rooney, Ronaldo, van Nistelrooy, Drogba, Robben, J. Cole. All serial divers (SD). Then there's A. Cole (SD), Terry, Lampard (SD), Ballack (SD), Giggs (SD), Kuyt (SD), Babel (whose dive was far worse than Eduardo's - and it knocked Arsenal out of the Champions League two seasons ago), And I saw Zola commit a comedy dive for Chelsea much like Eboue's on Saturday, but the ref bought Zola's. Add Gary Neville - actually booked at least twice for diving. Away from the Big Four, Huddlestone was booked at least twice last season for diving, Keane, Zokora, Jenas, Lennon - all of them serial divers.
And at one stage a few years back, practically the only player in the England team who didn't dive was Paul Robinson, who was probably afraid he would split his shorts.

Mentioning Thierry Henry just shows your ignorance.

He didn't dive once during his whole Arsenal career and in fact was fouled on many occasions, but didn't go down.

Ask any Southampton fan about the 2003 Cup Final when he could have had a Southampton player sent off in the first few minutes if he had, with very good reason, gone down. Thierry stayed on his feet instead of having the obvious penalty with a red card for the Southampton defender (whose name slips my mind), but off balance because of the foul, missed the chance.

Or Gary Kelly of Leeds whose cynical trip on Henry would have been a red card as the last man, but Henry stayed on his feet long enough to score anyway.