AP columnist Nancy Armour says after watching World Cup 2006 she’s convinced whining, crying and diving are acceptable behavior in soccer. It’s been said by pundits before: “Players ought to forget about wrangling new contracts from bigger, better teams and focus instead on their true calling: Hollywood.” Every World Cup there’s a multitude of variations on that theme, and it’s not an American thing, either. The diving, the conning and the cheap shots really have gone too far this time, Portugal-Netherlands the most glaring example. Sure, there were countless poor performances by referees (thankfully not since the later rounds), but as Franz Beckenbauer says, “Referees are only human, and let me say players are not making their jobs more easy.” In particular, Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal’s immensely talented young winger, comes to mind for constantly going to ground at the slightest of touches, and for otherwise looking to win over referees. He wasn’t the only, to be sure. As Armour says, “countless players spent several minutes on the ground, appearing to be in complete agony and in need of X rays, MRIs and every painkiller imaginable, only to get up and jog off as if nothing had happened.” The whining and diving wasn’t limited to players on the pitch, many coaches (Bruce Arena comes to mind) complained compulsively about poor or biased officiating.