World Cup: Faking the goalkeeper just isn’t cricket, soccer lawmakers rule

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In their wisdom, which isn’t saying much, soccer’s rule makers this week decided that it no longer will allow players who are taking penalty kicks to fake goalkeepers out of their socks by feigning a shot and then taking it.

The tactic, very popular in Brazil, where it is known as the paradinha, is best exemplified here by Ronaldo, a two-time World Cup winner and the World Cup’s all-time leading goal scorer with 15.

Members of the International Football Association Boards (IFAB), which writes the laws of the sport, has declared it illegal from now on, meaning that, three weeks before the World Cup in South Africa, IFAB has rewritten the rules of the game.

‘Feinting in the run-up to take a penalty kick to confuse opponents is permitted,’ said Jerome Valcke, FIFA’s general secretary. ‘However, feinting to kick the ball once the player has completed his run-up is now considered an infringement.’

As such, the tactic will be punished by a yellow card, and the penalty kick will have to be retaken.

The belief was that faking a shot, causing the goalkeeper to dive one way, and then steering the ball into the opposite side of the net constitutes unsporting behavior. Not fair play, in other words. The tactic has been frequently employed, as seen here.

But it can sometimes backfire with hilarious results, as seen in this hapless paradinha.

The intent of IFAB is praiseworthy, because the tactic is unsporting, but IFAB’s timing, just before the World Cup, is extraordinarily poor. And has anyone given thought to what happens if the paradinha tactic is employed on a direct free kick taken from close to the penalty area?

As things stand, that would be perfectly legal.

-- Grahame L. Jones