Sports anime usually offers an idealised view of sports, so cheating is rarely taken seriously in it, other than to make the underdog protagonist (team) even more of an underdog during an important match. This may not matter much for something like baseball, but for football fouling is an integral part of the game, no matter how much we’d like to pretend otherwise. Even so I could overlook that in the world of DAYS fouls didn’t happen, until episode 17 was a bit too blatant in featuring not one, not two but three blatant fouls. First, we got this joker taking his shirt off without getting a yellow as he should’ve, for celebrating a goal that turned out to be disallowed because he was offside. It may seem silly, but had he’d gotten the yellow card, obviously his play afterwards would’ve been influenced to lessen the risk of a second yellow and a sending off. Games have been won or lost by this sort of thing.
More serious is this second foul, a defender pushing the attacker down in the penalty box during a corner kick. That could’ve been a penalty, but here passed without comment. Which does happen in real football, so this is the one I have the least problems with how it was handled. Referees can miss things, especially in a crowded area like this.
But then this happens. A defender kicks down a broken through striker, with nothing between him and the goal, arguably denying a clear goal scoring opportunity. This should be a straight red, not just a free kick. But that’s all what happens. A blatant injustice but nobody remarks on it. The fouled on player is just glad to have won a free kick, as do his team mates and nobody protests to the ref. Not very realistic, but it does fit in the ganbare mindset of most sports anime, where hard work and sheer pluck should overcome misfortune and cheating. I guess that’s what the viewers want, but it annoyed me this time.
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