Smarter Than The Average Player

IMHO, generally speaking match officials are a given here but the theme of this post is not about Referees but about players. So, who are the smart players?

They are the ones who take time to look at the Laws and then adapt with reference to them. When it comes to goal celebrations, Manchester City's Carlos Tevez leads the pack ...

 Tevez after scoring against Chelsea in the Community Shield

Tevez after scoring against Southampton

 Tevez after scoring against Liverpool

Sami Nasri after scoring against Southampton

Barcelona's David Villa after scoring against Real Sociedad

When it comes to goal celebrations without picking up silly cautions, Carlos Tevez shows he is clearly smarter than the average player.


BTW, I had been meaning to mention this incident:

This was the moment when Bayern Munich's Bastian Schweinsteiger scored the winning penalty in the shootout to advance to the 2012 Champions League Final against Chelsea. Referee Viktor Kassai (Hungary) did not caution Schweinsteiger; had he been shown a YC then the German international would have missed the Final.

The specific post was drafted in June but never published. I have now posted it so that it can be linked with this post should anyone wish to research or consider the mitigating details.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The idea for this post about mandatory cautions for removing shirts during goal celebrations mostly came from the inspirational comments mentioned in Kicking Back.

Also, Kicking Back's statement that "FIFA, or the relevant competition authority should have the ability to correct decisions after the fact" is worth considering seriously. See an earlier related post about this called "The Reciprocal Appeal".