For decades, scientists have been studying what happens to the human body when a person trips and falls. For those scientists, watching the World Cup can be painful.

Oscar-worthy dives prompted by little more than a toe graze are nothing new in the world of soccer, but the World Cup has brought them back into centre stage.

E. Paul Zehr, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Victoria, decided to take a closer look at what goes on when a player fakes a dramatic leap.

“It’s cringe-worthy,” Zehr, who wrote an article about the phenomenon for Psychology Today, told CTV News Channel on Wednesday.

“I know what it looks like when people are tripped, and that’s not what it looks like. That’s what it looks like if you’re trying to draw attention to incidental contact to hopefully fool the referee.”

By studying footage of dives, Zehr identified three different styles of fake falls.

‘The Platoon’

This move, Zehr says, occurs when a player throws their hands up over their heads, similar to when William Defoe was shot in the 1986 movie “Platoon.”

“I wanted to call that one where you’re pulling your hands up over your head to get attention ‘The Platoon’ because that’s exactly what it looks like – an exaggerated reaction that’s got nothing to do with being tripped.”

‘The Finish Line’

This style of fall is a full-body lunge in which a player thrusts their chest forward while hurtling toward the ground.

“The Finish Line is again where players are pulling their arms away from the front of their bodies, putting them beside themselves or behind their backs, like you see runners trying to cross the finish line and break that tape with their chest, except in this case they’re usually plunging into the ground,” Zehr explained.

‘The Belly Flop’

Potentially the most painful of the three falls, the belly flop involve a player splaying their limbs out and falling on their stomach, as if they’re diving into a swimming pool.

The problem with all three moves is that they neglect a few simple truths of the human body. For instance, the falling player seem to momentarily forget that their arms are biologically designed to brace them in case of a trip.

“I like to say you keep your eyes in the arms, and the arms are there to protect us if we’re going to fall down. You don’t pull them away from the ground, you get them ready, you keep your feet growing to keep yourself from falling down,” he said.

One of the most meme-worthy falls of the World Cup came from Brazilian player Neymar, who appeared to fall backwards in front of Costa Rica’s net in a game last week.

 

 

Neymar’s fall was so original, it defied Zehr’s categories.

“I didn’t think to talk about that one when I wrote about this in Psychology Today to be honest. But looking at it now, I’d call that ‘The Timber’ because you’re basically chopping a tree over. It just falls over backwards. That one is really creative. You don’t see that one very often,” he said.

In a game against Morocco last week, Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo also pulled off a dive that Zehr considers a version of “The Platoon,” but with his own spin.

 

 

“He stops moving with his feet, which is again part of the key trick to look for because if you’re stumbling and falling, you keep your legs moving. You’re not just stopping and pummelling to the ground,” Zehr said.

Another notable dive of this year’s World Cup came from Luis Suarez of Uruguay during a match against Egypt. The fall, Zehr points out, involves plenty of creativity.

 

 

“Well I kind of like this one because you get this hybrid where you get the one arm up over your head to draw attention or something and then grabbing with the other leg, towards the other leg, and then stopping the feet moving again and tumbling over. So that one’s very creative actually,” he said.

Joking aside, Zehr said he decided to draw attention to the issue because he’s tired of players getting away with blatantly performative moves that are designed to disrupt gameplay and, on occasion, earn game-changing penalties.

“These players must know about it. But you know what? They get rewarded for it most of the time or at the very least they don’t get cards for simulation of diving, so why wouldn’t you? That’s where we’ve got to start enforcing the rules, really, to make it change.”