Diving has entered the game worse than before and the greatest offenders at this World Cup are the Italians. First they got away with a win against the Americans, then the Australian's, then the Germans. Using their cheating tactics puts fear into their opponents and causes hesitation to make the tackles. Fear of even breathing on the Italians might cause a yellow card or penalty kick.

When will FIFA step in? It is already late, other countries will look at the tapes of the Italians this World Cup and you can bet there will be at least 5 countries using these tricks at the next World Cup.

Something has to be done, I don't know if they need officials up in a box watching video replays as the game is being played and calling down divers to be removed for X minutes, or if a player goes down writhing in pain they should be removed for Y minutes and the game continues, or why not just issue more yellow cards to divers?? There has to be something or else everyone will follow the Italians lead and dive their way into the Finals like the Italians.

As the game went on the Germans pressed for a win even though you would think they wouldn't need to due to their great shootout record and Italy's terrible (0-3) shootout record but instead we saw the opposite - Italians went into their defensive posture, then when they got the ball near the Germans net of course the Germans were reluctant to tackle the Italian (for fear of all the diving and whining and writhing in pain) and allowed an opening.

According to this Globe and Mail story he tries to explain why the Italians dive so much:
"When English players see Italians dive or beg the referee, they think it's not sporting. But to the Italian, it's not a sport or a game; it is part of the profession."
If the Italians want to dive and carry on with all the whining that's fine if they do it in their own league, but to carry on and bring this to the World Cup where all the world is watching is just plain ol' not right. With Italians being renowned for their diving and still not being called by the "neutral" FIFA officials what this directly says to all the other nations is "diving is allowed and another way to get to the Finals". Don't believe me? just watch what happens hereon (in both the rest of this World Cup 2006 and in 2010 it'll be worse).

How is the Italians with their Diving any better than the what happened at the Winter Olympics when the Canadians were originally denied the Gold medal by the French judge?

The following post from here is another view of the Italians diving:
William Vander Wilp from Kingston, Canada writes: #6 Any Italy game which doesn't involve seveal Italian players being red carded for blatant diving is a game is which the refereeing is suspect. If Italy wasn't the soccer equivalent of an 'Original Six' team they would be called a lot more.

On the other hand it is possible FIFA uses the diving to control who proceeds forward in the World Cup. FIFA is rigged how else can you explain what is happening?