So I've been watching a fair amount of World Cup, and while I really enjoy watching soccer, I really dislike one particular aspect.

Cheating. Intentionally breaking the rules and trying to get away with it.

The games I've seen are chock-full of players playing a weird sort of meta-game against the ref, where they try to get away with anything they can. Any replay will show players grabbing the hell out of each other. If someone is barely nudged, they'll take a flying leap and roll around grabbing their ankle. And everyone knows they're doing it. It's pathetic, and somehow it's an accepted part of the game. The fact that there is a penalty against taking a dive just proves my point. It's out of control.

Another prime example is when the player is awarded a penalty kick at some random spot in the field. Almost invariably, the player will grab the ball, and when they bend down to place the ball, they actually throw it forward with backspin so that they get it an extra five or ten feet up the field. But what's the point? In 99.9% of situations, an extra couple feet on a penalty kick will make no difference. But yet that kinda of cheating mentally seems to be so ingrained that it's just natural. (Now that I think about it, maybe I should start doing that when placing my ball to putt in golf. Just toss it forward a few feet and hope no one notices).

I'm probably an idealist, but it really bugs me.

There's a popular phrase "if you're not cheating, you're not trying", but I think that's BS. Games, by definition, need rules and structure. I agree that a third party (read: referee) is almost always needed for impartial judgement, but players in any game need to have some sort of self-control.

Otherwise, it just turns into chaos.

I was playing CounterStrike last night, and we had an obvious wall-hacker on. For those not familiar, a wall-hacker is someone who cheats by using software that allows him to see through solid walls. Because you can jump into the head of any player and see everything from their point of view, I was able to observe him looking into a blank wall, track sideways to the corner of the wall, and then shoot the player as soon as he appeared at the corner. Stuff like that. His record was like 28 kills to 5 deaths, which certainly isn't unheard of, but is pretty damn good.

Just makes me sad.