Move over Tom Daley and Neymar, there is a new king of diving in town. Fiorentina's Federico Chiesa was at the centre of a highly controversial incident during the course of their 2-0 win over Atalanta on Sunday as he threw himself to ground to win a penalty.
The 20-year-old wriggled away down the left hand side of the pitch with some lovely skill but his good work was undone by a moment of idiocy.
He cut across the Atalanta defender, Rafael Toloi, and dived. It would have been funny if the referee hadn't fallen for his play-acting and awarded the penalty!
Jordan Veretout duly dispatched the spot-kick to put Fiorentina 1-0 up in their Serie A match at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, and Christian Biraghi added a second goal in injury time. The defeat was a bitter pill to swallow for Atalanta as they came away from a spicy match - which involved six yellow cards - with nothing to show for their efforts.
They will be fuming that Fiorentina were allowed to go ahead through Chiesa's blatant piece of cheating and the television commentator was suitably incensed. After seeing a replay of the incident, he yelled:
That is a disgrace! [He's] a disgrace and a cheat!
How the referee has bought that is beyond me."
The referee fell for Chiesa's antics hook, line and sinker. You can see the dive in all of its dubious glory by watching the video below. We're giving the dive 9.8-out-of-10 for style, grace, posture, poise, and for Chiesa having the audacity to ask the defender why he was so angry at the penalty decision...
Would you have given this one?
