It is often said that there is nothing fans hate more than diving. Than simulation. Than the sight of grown men falling to the floor having been hit by nothing more than thin air. A few years ago, this newspaper even mounted a campaign on the issue — I think it was called “show simulation the red card” — and sent posters to clubs to put on their dressing-room walls featuring a player in mid-air in the middle of a circle with a red line through it. A bit like a traffic sign.
There was a problem with this campaign, however, and with the analysis that produced it. Fans do not hate simulation; they love it. I realised this, perhaps most forcibly, when watching England
