Immobile fell to the ground then swiftly stood up when his teammate scored
(Picture: BBC)Football fans think Italian striker Ciro Immobile faked an injury during a game and they are seething.
In their quarter-final match against Belgium yesterday, Immobile fell to the ground after coming into contact with Jan Vertonghen.
Instead of stopping the game, the referee did not act and Immobile’ teammate Nicolo Barella quickly scored a goal, causing Immobile to get up and join his teammates celebrating.
This has led fans to be suspicious about whether the footballer was actually injured, or was just trying to get awarded a cheeky penalty and people weren’t happy:
Immobile rolling around on the floor looking for the penalty. Barela scores and he miraculously gets up and starts celebrating
— JaiP (@JaiP72) July 2, 2021
Embarrassing and makes the game a farce, they talk about getting the younger generation back into football and then you see blatant cheating like this. No honesty left in the game.
— Gareth Bayliss (@gareththechief) July 3, 2021
“I’m feeling a bit better, actually” pic.twitter.com/6hMSvFd089
— Stig Abell (@StigAbell) July 2, 2021
this should be an automatic red card
— Jason Shiplett (@jshiplett) July 2, 2021
Alan Shearer said “I don’t even want to laugh at that because that’s pathetic. You can see him having a little look at the referee before he even goes down.
“It’s pathetically embarrassing.”
"I don't even want to laugh at that because that's pathetic!"
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) July 2, 2021
Alan Shearer was not impressed by Ciro Immobile's theatrics 🤣#bbcfootball #ITA #euro2020 pic.twitter.com/kQP1uE88l7
Others thought Immobile potentially crying wolf was dangerous in light of Christian Eriksen’s life threatening collapse during a game earlier this month. Fans expressed concern that faking injuries could lead referees not to take real issues seriously:
Players need to be taught that behaving this way takes away from the real and quite possibly deadly scenarios of players getting injured. It wasn’t long ago when Christian Eriksen collapsed due to cardiac arrest and required resuscitation to save his life in the same tournament. https://t.co/qccqBQufA7
— Ryan 🌹 (@RetrospecsRyan) July 3, 2021
Makes a mockery of Christian Eriksen’s on field near death experience. This is but 1 example of hundreds throughout the tournament and is the main reason why I now rarely watch football. https://t.co/cqVmTv8PUk
— Farr Fox Hake 🏴 (@farrfoxhake) July 3, 2021
But others thought it was simply part of the game, and no big deal:
Calm down everyone. This is part of the game of soccer.
— Pedram Hoss (@PedramHoss) July 2, 2021
Thats part of the game why u think best players do that?
— Damian (@Damas1235) July 2, 2021
Italy beat Belgium and the final score was 2.1. They will soon face Spain in a semi-final match.
Let’s just hope Immobile recovers in time for it...
