I’m talking about the incident when Anthony Pinthus was down and CFC scored, leading to heated discussions, a foiled walkout (an assumption), a foiled fair play moment before CFC eventually let UCFC score in the spirit of fair play. Those whose social media algorithms are football-oriented have surely seen videos that highlight fair play, the most famous of course is Paolo di Canio catching a cross with his hands after seeing a keeper injured.
Is the Pinthus incident in a similar category and did it merit a similar response? That is Cebu should have refused to score?
First, the whole sequence of play started with Pinthus quickly taking a free kick after an offside was called, starting a quick counterattack. Logic dictates that if he was really injured, he could have just stopped the play then and asked for treatment. Cebu stopped the counter and when the camera pans back to the UCFC side, there was Pinthus, on the ground, flailing like a child caught with his pants down.
Cebu’s goal started that whole drama.
The Cebu crowd doesn’t miss much and when the camera was on the Cebu side, I heard a bit of a murmur from the crowd, and I think that was the time when Pinthus—whatever prodded him—decided to sit at the top of the box and the crowd noticed. Was he really injured? Sure, he seemed injured but wasn’t visibly impaired when he got into a pushing and shoving incident minutes later.
When I first heard about it, I thought he did it to waste time. But it was 2-2 at that point. So why did he do it? Both visiting coaches in the post-match press cons have cited the crowd as a factor in their players’ behavior and I think the highly partisan crowd led Pinthus to do something he wouldn’t normally do. Kung sa Binisaya pa, nagpapansin ang karaho.
The boos Pinthus got and that offhand remark caught on the telecast, “Injured man kaya siya,” is enough basis for me. This is the same paying Cebu crowd that booed Global Cebu in its last home game when it was obvious it wasn’t playing to win against Ceres FC. The same Cebu crowd that had seen fair play conducted by intense high school rivals in heated finals.
Cebu let UCFC score eventually, and I think that’s a teachable moment for the fans. No matter the crazy antics of the other side, the spirit of fair play means you’d have to swallow your pride (Which why I chose Fair Play as a title for this column.)
I hope Pinthus learns something from that too. He and only he knows what really happened and why he ended up on the ground. If he wants to be remembered by home fans, let his actions at goal do it for him, not his antics off it.
Because for me, that was simply that. An antic that spoiled an otherwise great game between Cebu and UCFC.
Which reminds me of what a goalkeeping coach told me years ago. “Goalkeepers have to be crazy to do their jobs effectively.”