Scott Stinson: In Costa Rica match, Canada got schooled in soccer's dark arts – National Post

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There was a moment just after Costa Rica forward Johan Venegas drew the mild contact he wanted from Canadian midfielder Mark-Anthony Kaye on Thursday night that was easily missed.

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Venegas, after receiving the lightest of shoulders to his chest from Kaye, began his theatrical drop to the turf at Estadio Nacional. Then the moment: He started to lift a hand to his face, which is standard practice when a footballer is feigning grievous harm. A hand, maybe two hands, to the face, and then you roll around and kick your legs in mighty spasms of pain and agony and later, after the opponent has been punished, you rise and everyone notices that your face is fine.

But Venegas, as quickly as he started to raise his hand, dropped it again. He must have realized that, having received the bump in the chest, he could not fake a blow to the face. Kaye’s arms were, after all, resolutely at his sides when he brushed his opponent. And so Venegas didn’t pretend he had been belted up high, didn’t risk making the dive that much more obvious, and simply fell to the ground. Then he rolled around in spasms of pain and agony and acted as though Kaye had caved in his chest with a sledgehammer.

This was elite flopping.

It was, of course, also ridiculous. Referee Said Martinez had, 20 minutes earlier, given Kaye a deserved yellow card for a high boot in a tackle that could have been a red card. Venegas was plainly flopping so that Martinez would give Kaye a second yellow, bringing his ejection. Everyone in the stadium knew it, as did anyone watching at home. No one could possibly have fallen that hard, been so very injured, from such mild contact. It was embellishment of the highest order.

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There is even a rule against it.  Attempts to deceive the referee by faking injury or faking contact with an opponent, known as simulation, can themselves be a yellow-card offence. In this case, it probably wouldn’t have mattered, as even if Venegas had been carded for his shameless dive, Kaye would likely still had received his. He did give the guy a little check. The bait was there, and he took it.

In the end, it was a masterclass in what is known in soccer parlance as s–thousery, a catch-all term that refers to all of the sport’s unethical behaviours meant to gain an unfair edge: faking contact, wasting time, provoking opponents into reactions, harassing officials, messing with the penalty spot, feigning injuries to kill momentum, all that fun stuff. (Yes, like sithouse, but with an extra letter in there that you should be able to guess.)

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And it was, even though Costa Rica’s 1-0 victory kept Canada from clinching a spot at Qatar 2022, a useful preview of the tactics that can take place even at the highest levels of soccer, of the kinds of things that Canada will need to remember as they move on, as they still should, to the biggest soccer competition in the world.

This is not meant entirely as a complaint. No sport is immune to a little bit of fraud. The NBA has its floppers — beloved former Toronto Raptor Kyle Lowry remains a true artist — and the NHL brought in an anti-diving rule, though it is rarely called, to deal with the same problem there.

But soccer, or rather certain soccer players and teams, are just committed to it on a whole different level. It is a tactical strategy, just the same as setting the team up with three central defenders and two wing backs or putting a tall guy up front and spending the whole game lobbing balls toward him. As Canada went into San Jose as the undefeated group leaders, and with Costa Rica on the outside of the qualification spots and rather desperately needing points, it was a prime situation for some epic s–thousery. And so it was. The only unexpected part was that the Costa Ricans did not spend more time in the second half practising the full suite of the dark arts: stalling for time, dropping to the ground with assorted muscle strains and soft-tissue problems, booting the ball into the stands, basically doing all they could to run out the clock as Canada pressed and pressed again for an equalizer that just would not quite arrive.

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Maybe there’s something in the sport’s unwritten code that says doing that kind of thing against a 10-man squad is just a touch too artless.

But there is no point pretending that the tactics will not be employed. At the 2018 World Cup, there was much opprobrium over a series of s–thouse tactics that briefly became the talk of the tournament. Brazil’s Neymar rolling around like he was near death, a host of Colombians practically assaulting the referee after he had awarded a clear penalty against them, Portugal’s Pepe both provoking a response and then theatrically going to ground. He remains a Sith Lord of the dark arts.

People furrowed their brows, wondered if the sport needed to do something about all this, and then it was largely forgotten. All the evidence that such tactics can work was on display in San Jose.

Should Canada clinch its spot at Qatar, it will arrive in that tournament and find itself facing some teams against which it will be huge underdogs. The temptation for s–thousery will be significant.

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sstinson@postmedia.com