South American skullduggery
Emerson Acuña is a Colombian striker who plays for Atlético Junior in the land of his birth. His nickname is El Piojo - “The Louse”. Not a sobriquet which speaks of a player adored by the masses. This video goes some way to explain his unpopularity.
That’s easily the most shameless, dishonest dive I’ve ever seen. I mean, rightly or wrongly, we all expect players to flop to the turf when there’s a bit of clumsy contact in the box. But you can’t have any contact when the opposition aren’t within touching distance!
The resultant penalty allowed Atlético to open the scoring after only 19 minutes of play. They held their 1-0 lead over América de Cali until the second half, by which point the visitors were playing against ten men: Acuña was sent off in the 34th minute.
When the full-time whistle blew, it was still honours even at 1-1. The combination of Acuña’s cheating and myopic refereeing from José Niño robbed América of all three points.