Just recently Rio Ferdinand launched a trend on twitter entitled #stayonyourfeet, with a view to naming/shaming those who went down too easily.
There have been loads of players buying a foul. The likes of Cristiano Ronaldo was very much singled out for abuse, while at Old Trafford, for his theatrics and given a right talking to by the gaffer. More recently, Ashley Young has shamefully gone the same way.
There is no moral high-ground in this argument. There is no 'oh but he dives more' either...a player who takes a dive once is as bad as one who does it week in and week out. Both are looking to wrongly gain an advantage and should be punished. In my book it's the same as hacking down an opponent or even handling the ball. FOUL PLAY!
Come on Paddy #stayonyourfeet
It seems so many more footballers are taking the 'easy route'...is it not enough that club loyalty and pride has gone out the window, do we need to further tarnish the game by going down, rather than staying up and contributing positively to the beauty of this game?!
So I see these things happening week in and week out, right here on our doorstep as well as in the top leagues around the globe. THEN, we get wind of the sudden and tragic death of one Piermario Morosini.
How does that connect to this you ask?
Well, on closer inspection I'm informed that Morosini lost both his parents in the space of two years...soon after he lost his brother. Despite these drastic occurrences, he continued to persevere and made his way into the books of Serie A side Udinese.
Still you may ask, where's the connection?!
Well on the one hand you have a bunch of prima donna's [possibly] thinking they're a gift to football and playing it half-heartedly and with every intention of finding the easy way out, by simulating [for example]...
On the other hand you have a passionate person, who despite many dark moments continued to strive towards achieving his dream of playing football.
He may never have gone on to be one of the finest in the business, but he sure did leave it all on the field, which is worthy of respect in any one's book.
If you watch the video of his death. You'd see, that even when he was suffering cardiac arrest ON THE FIELD, he refused to fall down and fought to stay up and play to literally the very end of his life.
This is the kinda passion this game is sorely lacking.
#stayonyourfeet
PIERMARIO MOROSINI
05.07.86 - 14.04.12
Good read as always, just one thing though. The #stayonyourfeet campaign was actually poking fun at Ray Wilkins. Old Ray was commentating on a CL game involving Chelsea. Whenever Chelsea was defending close to their penalty area he kept on telling the Chelsea defenders to "stay on your feet".
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