Fair Play All Around

Today's blog post was written by Tony Kim.  Tony is an intern with Play Like a Champion Today, and a senior Psychology Major at Purdue North Central.  In his spare time, Tony loyally supports Manchester United.

In a game riddled with heels being clipped, shirts being tugged, pushing, pulling, diving for penalties in the box, and discretely doing any and everything to gain an advantage for your team—honesty is rarely seen in soccer today.  That is why the actions of Werder Bremen’s midfielder Aaron Hunt and Nuremberg FC’s Hiroshi Kiyotake in their team’s match against one another this past weekend was refreshing, to say the least.

With a 2-0 lead, Hunt received the ball from the left-winger, took a touch that had him charging into the box, and before anyone knew otherwise, he was on the ground with the official blowing the whistle and pointing to the penalty spot. With the Nuremberg players protesting the official's call, Hunt sought the referee’s attention, and told him that it was not a penalty and that he had fallen on his own.  The referee, then, reversed his decision and dropped the ball at the goalkeeper’s feet for a drop ball to be put back into play as Nuremberg players gave gestures of approval and thanks to Hunt.

Hunt’s act of honesty and fair play was not the only one of the game. On the other end of the field as Bremen’s defender Prödl slid in to tackle Hiroshi Kiyotake, a corner kick was initially awarded to Nuremberg. That decision was also reversed as Kiyotake volunteered that it should not be a corner and that he was the last to touch the ball. With gestures of approval for his behavior by both the official and Bremen’s players, the game went on with a goal kick for Bremen.  (Bremen ended up winning the match.)

As both of these players have shown, acts of good character can still be seen in the game of soccer today. Even with displays of dishonesty with players diving for fouls (yes, I’m talking about you Luis Suarez), the game is still one of beauty and honor.  Even with the threat of relegation into lower leagues, these two teams and their players truly Played Like Champions, showing that character always comes first.