However, I have one major problem with soccer. The way its participants (at the highest level, at least) roll around on the ground and feign injury. The way they launch into a swan dive at the slighest hint of physical contact. This is the opposite of what I see in most of the other sports which I follow.
In other sports, such as football or baseball for example, players will feign normality after they have been flattened with a vicious hit or stung with a pitch, rather than give the opposition the idea that they have inflicted hurt.
It is this cry-baby behavior which causes onlookers to conclude that soccer players are a)soft and b)duplicitous.
Soccer made a couple of rule changes a couple of years ago and this has gone away. Refs now card people for taking dives and it has worked. The melodrama has pretty much disappeared. Another rule change was to not allow the goalie to pick up the ball if his own team passes the ball back to him (unless by a header) so it keeps the game uptempo.
In American Football, it is quite common for a punter to grossly exagerate contact to draw a penalty flag. Nice try, play again.
And speaking of hockey, a player will take a puck or stick in the face, go to the locker room and get 20 stitches and then return to the ice. Same with borken bones. Put a cast on it and get back on the ice.
Vlade Divac?