Penalties and fouls, by Toni Clapés

I wanted to comment on the injustice of social networks with Luke de Jongof how they have gone from mocking the “badest striker in the history of modern football” to now praising “the Dutch reincarnation of Luis Suarez”, but I cannot ignore a fashion that is spreading dangerously these days in Madrid: that of talking about penalties and fouls. Two terms coined in soccer gatherings to argue what is not arguable. That if Barça are awarded three penalties against Levante and two of them are, at least, doubtful, then we will say that they are “penalties”, no, but yes. What if to Mark Alonso, from Chelsea, had a goal disallowed against Real because it is intuited, suspected or has the impression that the ball grazes his hand coming from an uncontrollable rebound because he is described as “missing” and that’s it. No, but yes, because it is convenient.

But what is this about penalties and fouls? Adding a diminutive to justify the rigor of its signaling seems to me a lexical swindle. Did they give us a fail when we went to school? Does Traffic make us multitas? Right not? Either they are or they aren’t, and it gives me that neither the referees nor the VAR have their own rules very clear. These plays, the accidental hands, cause confusion among players and fans who no longer know how to interpret the laws. The urgency of a common-sense review would prevent much unnecessary controversy and tantrums. For tantrums we already have bad weather for much of this Easter.