In the past four days, Diego Costa has ruined a potentially fantastic game of football, been labeled a cheat by his own teammate, and received a charge from the FA for violent conduct.
Just another week in the life.
Anyone who witnessed Saturday’s London derby between Chelsea and Arsenal—well, anyone who isn’t entirely blinded by a partisan interest in Costa’s club—knows that the Brazilian-born Spanish international hijacked what had been an open, enticing match with his trademark brand of petty violence and conflict instigation.
In the 43rd minute, Costa came together with Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny, who was marking the Chelsea striker. There was some arm fighting for position, of a completely benign and common variety, the sort you’d see from any set piece defense; Costa, however, took umbrage to this, and decided to do his best Grizzly bear impression, and claw at Koscielny’s face. He failed to remove the Frenchman’s nose, so he took a backhanded swipe with the other arm for good measure. When Koscielny objected to Costa’s face-removal attempt, Costa chest-bumped him to the ground (admittedly, the Arsenal man went down rather easily, but it’s also clear that Costa initiated the contact).
This was the heart of the incident. In following, Gabriel Paulista, Arsenal’s other center back, came to his partner’s defense, and Diego Costa succeeded in riling up Gabriel, who speaks little English, and is unaccustomed to being accosted in his native Portuguese—and especially unaccustomed to the Costa brand of assault. Gabriel was booked for defending his partner, as was Diego Costa. But then, when referee Mike Dean failed to separate the players, Costa pushed Gabriel past the breaking point, and he gave a slight kick out toward Costa. It was mild (and Costa himself reproduced the kick toward Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain later in the match, an incident that went unpunished), but it was still worthy of a second yellow, and just like that, what had been a fantastic, open, attacking game was scrapped by Costa’s gamesmanship.
In the interest of being bipartisan, I call it gamesmanship; Kurt Zouma, Chelsea defender and goalscorer this weekend, calls it cheating. “We’re not surprised because we know Diego. Everyone knows Diego and this guy likes to cheat a lot and put the opponent out of his game.” We should take this with a grain of salt, as Zouma—who later apologized for the comment—is not a native English speaker, but despite that caveat, coming from a teammate, it still speaks volumes about Costa’s character as a player.
But that’s not even the main issue here. Did Diego Costa deserve to be sent off in the match against Arsenal? Without a doubt, he should have seen red for this. Does he have a clearly documented history of violent conduct on the pitch? Yup, quite clearly. Does that make Costa a dirty player? Well, maybe so. Does he intentionally try to rile up opponents to give his team an advantage? Sure, but many players do that.
In addition to being a brilliantly talented goalscorer, Diego Costa is a controversial and volatile player on the pitch. But he’s not the only one. And there exists an organization that is, supposedly, tasked with observing, controlling, and disciplining such characters: the Football Association.
And they’ve made a royal bloody mess of it.
Diego Costa has been subsequently charged with violent conduct by the FA for his actions in Saturday’s match, and on the face of it, that’s a good thing. Indeed, it does give a sense of at least retroactive justice for what happened on the pitch at Stamford Bridge this weekend, and few can argue that Costa didn’t deserve at least equal punishment to what Gabriel received.
Still, even if the charge is upheld (it will be), it isn’t equal punishment, and few Arsenal supporters will feel that it is fully just, ruined as their side’s chances were in that match. Mike Dean had control of the situation in theory, but in practice, it all went to hell and he could only clean up the bits and pieces he saw. It’s somewhat baffling that, in addition to Dean, the linesman didn’t see the confrontation between Costa and Koscielny, but so it goes in football.
But it doesn’t have to be so. When the issue of using replay on the field, within the course of a game is brought up, FIFA, the FA, and various other football associations harp on themes of ‘tradition’ and opine that its use would completely destroy a match’s flow. This is a perfect case in counterpoint.
There was an altercation that took place when the referee had his back turned, one that resulted in a swarm of players with Gabriel and Costa at its center, and one that clearly had an antecedent, a moment of instigation. Mike Dean had to stop play anyway, due to the fight, so there would have been no need to ‘disrupt’ the game’s flow further than it already was. What’s more, the amount of time it would take a seasoned official to review the replays and decide the proper course of action would be measured not in minutes, but seconds. And to add such a fifth official, a consultant who advises the head referee via his earpiece and microphone (as the other officials already do) with the aid of multiple camera angles would cost a tiny fraction of the revenue those television cameras bring in—and it would change the game for the better.
I am an Arsenal supporter, so in the events of this weekend’s match, I felt my club was hard done by. But beyond my partisan fandom, I am also a football fan in general, and with a match of this magnitude, surely there we a great number of neutral fans all over the world watching what took place. By letting what was a promising match between fantastically talented teams be derailed by Costa’s gamesmanship, Mike Dean, and the FA, let those fans down.
This isn’t just about getting this one call right—it’s about creating a culture of accountability. From diving to violent conduct, a spate of unsavory aspects of the game could be reduced to afterthoughts with the use of video replay. If a player knows that only, say, 30% of foul simulations are seen and booked by a referee on the pitch (that’s probably a high estimate), but 85% are caught and booked live, within the match, with the aid of a fifth official watching video replay, then the risk-reward calculation doesn’t add up, and players will dive less. If a player like Diego Costa knows that he’s more liable to be sent off as the instigator, if picking a moment when the referee’s back is turned means he’s no less likely to be sent off because video evidence provides a safety net, then we’ll see this brand of instigate-and-run far less frequently.
In his reaction to Costa’s violent conduct charge, Jose Mourinho lamented that his player was being put on “trial by TV.” In this case, the Chelsea boss is right on the money. Costa is being put on trial by television replay—just as all players should be. If only that ‘trial’ could happen during the matches themselves; football would be better for it.