OK, my question is: How can anyone take Cristiano Ronaldo seriously as a footballer when half of his game involves what essentially amounts to cheating? I'm not so naive to think that most footballers won't occasionally go down heavily with minimal contact, but I'll never consider anyone that does this habitually anything less than dishonest, regardless of their level of talent (e.g. Ronaldo, every single Italian to have ever touched a football, the Portuguese, many Spanish, most latin American players, and Juergen Klinsmann).
Though the level of technical expertise in the US-England match wasn't anything to write home about, it was a pleasure to see players get up immediately from hard fouls, dust themselves off, and continue playing. Not being dishonest doesn't mean never going down on contact, it just means not embellishing what occurred.
What's particularly bad about CR is that not only is he a habitual diver and shameless whiner, he's also one of the dirtiest players around when the refs aren't looking - truly a disgrace to sportsmanship in my opinion, despite his incredible natural talent.
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