English football has long had a reputation for having little time for diving or any of football’s other dark arts.
However, during the Three Lions last 16 victory against Colombia, England centre-back Harry Maguire was caught out attempting a pretty blatant dive in the South American sides’ box in an effort to win a penalty.
Perhaps the big burly Leicester City man needs some advice from his team-mate and dive master Dele Alli on how to convince referees that he has been fouled in the area, as his claims were waived away by the match officials on Tuesday night.
Manchester United boss admitted afterwards that he was surprised to see Maguire acting in such a way and also revealed that he feels the constant theatrics of players detract from the overall quality of games at the World Cup.
“The negative thing for me was the fact…I think there is exaggeration on theatre by the players,” Mourinho told Russia Today.
“I was surprised to see central defenders like Harry Maguire, normally he is a very honest guy, diving in the attacking box asking the referee for VAR.
“Every team has lots of diving, lots of pretending, lots of putting pressure on the referee. The game loses quality…and for me that was the negative point.”
To be fair to Maguire and some other England players, it has often been said that one of the reasons the Three Lions fail at major tournaments more often then not is due to their inability to mix it with European and South American sides in terms of the games darker arts, so it seems like one of those situation were they will be criticised if they do and criticised if they don’t.