Peru vs. Brazil in the Copa America group stage Sunday saw an unprecedented refereeing decision regarding a handball.
No, not that one.
You know that thing where players go down as soon as they get bumped and they grab the ball while they're on the ground, but before the ref can call anything, and force the ref to decide between a foul and a handball? I f****** hate when players do that.
It slows the game down and just looks bad. I'm not sure how justified I am in hating this. I haven't seen that much complaining about it on the Internet, which is the official dumping ground for all ultimately useless athlete complaints, which is what this is.
The act just gets under my skin and makes me turn into a bug-eyed lunatic yelling person. I root for the ref to call a handball every time, even if the player is grabbing the ball in response to a legitimate foul. The ref always chooses to call a foul. Always.
Until Sunday night, when a Peruvian player went down and grabbed the ball like usual and the ref blew his whistle like usual but this time he signaled for a handball and it was glorious.
I've literally been rooting for this call to happen for years. Hopefully we see it more often.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
