During the Olympics, one of the aerial competition commentators, a former olympic competitor herself, answered the question as to why every competitor jumps for joy after a jump. She said that there is always a chance that the judges might be swayed by the reaction of an athlete to his or her own performance. In effect, the competitor is compelled to 'sell' the jump to the judges.
Lydia Lassila celebrates convincingly after a jump
We also see this tendency creeping more and more into other sports. The World Cup of soccer is marred every tournament by players rolling around on the pitch holding their knees or ankles, and then miraculously jumping up and running perfectly if the referee is not buying.
It is even happening at the youth level. This last weekend, Aidan's soccer team played a tournament in the competitive pool for his age group in Victoria. His team played two games on Saturday, and two games on Sunday. We saw the 'selling of the play' a few times in the tournament, and on three occasions our team got burned.
In the third game in particular, Jason, one of our midfielders, had a wide open net off a deflection at very close range. He hit the ball, and the opponent's keeper dove backwards and caught the ball that was clearly over the goal line. However, his players praised him loudly for his save, and he immediately stood up and threw the ball to an open player. He and his team had 'sold' the save very well. At the same time, our players did not celebrate the goal at all, and instead waited for the ref's call. The call never came, and play proceeded.
Later on in the game, the opponent's right back, a bruiser of a 13-year-old, cracked a 40m shot at our goal-keeper. It was a very good shot that threatened to duck just under the cross-bar. However, our keeper got enough of it to bounce it off the underside of the cross-bar, so that the ball came down directly onto the goal line and then into the keeper's hands. After the game, several spectators watching along the goal line told us that all of the ball did not go in. (The rule is that the ball must be completely over the line for it to be counted a goal.). Nevertheless, the other team went nuts, high-fiving, shouting, jumping for joy, and ran back immediately to their half for the kick-off. Our team again waited for the ref's decision, and even though he was 50m from the goal and could not possibly have seen the ball go over the line, acquiesced to the screaming and celebrating opponents. We lost the game 2-1. Perhaps if we had tried to 'sell' our goals, or defense against goals, we may have won 2-1.
In the second half of the fourth game, the ref blew her whistle to stop play because she thought that one of our boys had committed a hand-ball foul in our 18 yard box. Fully a second after the whistle had blown, one of the opponents' players struck the ball into our goal. Again, the opponents screamed and shouted and ran back to centre for the kick-off. The referee counted the goal.
This was the most egregious act of 'selling' the play all weekend. Once a whistle is blown, play must stop. If a player strikes a ball after the whistle, particularly when very close to an opponent's keeper, the player sometimes receives a yellow card for dangerous play and unsportsmanship. At the very least, the ref, having blown her whistle, should have disallowed the goal, and allowed the other team to kick a penalty shot at our keeper, who had saved an earlier penalty kick in the tournament. Instead, unbelievably, she decided to allow the goal.
While typing this post, I have been jumping up and down maniacally to convince you of my position. I hope I have sold it well, and that you are buying.
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