GolfHos

I heard about this controversy on the radio today and wondered what you soccer guys thought of it.

Cool move or disrespectful to the game?


Soccer: 'Seal dribble' stirs debate in Brazil
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Sep/19/br/br9840132576.html

Kerlon The Seal Dribble
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Kerlon attempts seal dribble and get's hammered
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I read about this as well. Within the rules but some seem to consider it bad form (similar to "unwritten" rules in other sports). While I follow the sport I don't think I'm one to offer any great insight one way or another. It's different and takes skill but my gut tells me it isn't really in the spirit of the game. That being said I don't have a major problem with it.

In a rush out the door and didn't read the article but I don't like it.  If a defender goes for the ball he's going to commit a sending off worthy foul - at the very least be guilty of dangerous play.  You have to allow a defender his right to go for the ball.

Unsporting behavior IMO.

I have to agree. At least as a keeper I have the option of punching the ball away. If I miss the ball I doubt he will do it again against us. ;)

Can't you just impede his progress by getting in the way and force him to pass? That's how you defend in basketball when the ballhandler is dribbling on the floor as opposed to his head. You could also try to go for the ball with your head instead of kicking the guy in the midsection like the dude in the video did.

I played defense as a soccer player on up to the college club level and was trained to play it very physically, to use my body to intimidate the front guys on the other team. 

Unless the game has changed a lot, I don't see a problem with creaming the seal.  You can't just let him waltz into the zone and get a shot off.

Huh?  Oh!  No, it's just ice cream.

The guy in the video was making a point.  Strenuously. 

The spacing in soccer is very different than basketball.  If you can't touch the guy because he's bouncing a ball on his head and you stop in front of him he'll just go around you with, oh, 15 feet or so to spare.  Do you just trail along behind him and wait for him to miss/pass/score?

You can go for the ball with your head, I agree, but the rules of soccer clearly (and obviously) allow you to go for a ball with your feet.  If a defender launches at a guy doing this, doesn't show his studs, doesn't go through the guy and picks the ball cleanly from the forehead it should be a legal tackle, yes?  Well, it wouldn't be if I was center ref.  I'd call dangerous play.  So now we have refs having to choose between penalizing players for legal plays or let it go and deal with the dude's crushed skull later in the match.

Consider a guy playing a ball from the ground (the player's laying on the ground that is).  He can be whistled for dangerous play for sticking his unprotected noggin into a forest of boots just as easily as the other guy can foul by kicking near the first guys head.  I'd be strongly inclined to look at this the same way.

Best solution on this for me is warn the guy for either unsporting behavior or bringing the game into disrepute and book him on the second go round.  That'll solve it post haste.

There's no room for it in the game.  It fundamentally changes the way soccer is played. 

The ref's can't let the hammer pass in light of the play being responded to?

In other words: Kerlon gets hammered while doing the seal, and the refs don't throw a card because there really is nothing else for the defender to do?

The refs have to call fouls.  A boot six inches above a guy's head is dangerous play.  There's really no other way to look at it. 

Obviously, if the boot connects with the head the offending player's going to be penalized with something more than a free kick and possibly just less than criminal charges. 

There's no good answer here.  It doesn't fit.  Nor does stuffing the ball under your jersey and sauntering down the field.  As far as I know there's no direct prohibition of this in the laws of the game but I guarantee you it's not allowed.

Ref is final authority.  If it's me, Kerlon is warned to stop it.  If he does it again I, at the very least, award a free kick the other way.

Its been a while since I've ref'd - but......

1)  In order to shield the ball you must have 'control' of it.  The ball bouncing off your head is not 'control' in my mind (and certainly not in a traditional soccer sense).  Therefore - bounce him off and get the ball - all is good.

2)  You are allowed to go for the ball with your feet in most circumstances, but not all.  But you would be allowed to go for it with your head.  Then again, you may have my height and be screwed on this option  ;)

3)  There is no need for a 'hammer' - shoulder contact is a perfectly legal move and would provide more than enough force to bounce the guy off his path and get the ball when it fell (again, assuming A - no 'control').


So - get the ball with your head - OR - legal body/shoulder contact in a challenge for the ball.  Whats the problem??

I don't see the need to issue warnings and cards - just let them play.  Once the defenders understand they can challenge for the ball (keeping the elbows and hands down) without getting called for it, there will be no more problem.

I shouldn't have said hammer, I should have said 'Lay A Shoulder Block On Him', which then becomes a judgement call on the refs part, does it not?

What you'd do in Hockey is send some 3d string defenseman out there to lay him out every time he does it. I'd guess he'd stop after the 3d or 4th concussion... :)

Rick, shoulder to shoulder contact CAN be a foul if the player isn't playing the ball.  There can be a foul if two players are going for a header (seems an apt analogy in this case) and one shoulders the other off his chance.  If, as you said, Kerlon is not controlling the ball then is it not essentially a situation where two guys are going for a header?

Makes my head hurt.  It's a dorky ass move in the first place and has no place in a serious sport.  Someone should knock him halfway down the tunnel and be done with it.

Well, color me confused, but isn't he controlling the ball by dribbling it with his head?

Or does 'Controlling The Ball'have to be on the ground?


That's what I said: Get the head butt guy out of retirement, he looks like he could take him down...

[ [sm_anon] posting in a soccer thread]  Does it matter that Kerlon dude steps out of bounds while he's blowing the seal?  Apparently not, but that throws out the basketball analogy.[/  [sm_anon] posting in a soccer thread]

As long as the ball is inbounds it doesn't matter where the player is.

So that takes me back to the OP.  "Was this an asshat move?"

If he was dancing the sideline.......He was keeping the ball in play. Ala the jump in the endzone feet off the ground batting back a punt.

Doesn't explain him doing in the crease though.

Dumbass game.

The first video is him doing it with a 1 goal lead late, and the feeling is he was just showing off, which is why the guy nails him (hard) almost immediately. I read that player may be suspended for a year, which leads to this part of your comment:


 ;D

Yep, but I was leaving things to the ref's discretion.  The 'seal' is putting himself in a dangerous position; the ref needs to protect players from harm, but I don't consider bruises harm  ;)

Loophole.

Asshat move.

If it's me and after seeing this once maybe twice, at some point when no one's looking I'm popping the seal in the sack and saying don't ever do this again.

I just had a golf lesson from a guy that refs college and pro soccer (MLS), I should have asked him about this and his opinion. Yet another wasted opportunity.

I'd love to hear what he has to say.  Assuming he's not from Central America that is.