The litmus test for somebody’s football beliefs, of this generation at least, was the Luis Suarez handball against Ghana at WC 2010.
Was Suarez justified in volleyball-spiking the shot out of the net? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tDpx9GGH79I
When I was younger, I was bitter and thought it wasn’t fair. But I’ve come around. Handballs are part of the game. The punishment in that circumstance is a red card and a multiple game suspension. Most people would have done the same thing in his boots. If you want to remove cheating, you’d have to ban people from the sport. But I think people would prefer to have controversy than to have a synthetically clean game.
(Where I draw the line is tackling with intent to injure, or intentionally escalating physically dangerous situations. That is never OK.)
People are gradually trying to make the game more binary. They tried to make the handball rule more black and white this season, and many players and most fans agree it’s a regression.
"Cheating" would be being on steroids or bribing the ref or something like that.
And Panama's ghost goal keeping USA out of the last World Cup. Ridiculous. I thought they at least had goal line sensors.
Plus, it's just a game, nobody died. And it's fun to watch how a very small player beat a giant keeper through creativity and boldness.