people should never blame diego costa, its the refs fault.

@tuan @ tiki: I appreciate the comments but I really did not write that about me to get sympathy or anything like that. I just wanted to illustrate that ones past does not justify the actions of his or her future. At this point, both Diego Costa and I are a lot better off living comfortable lives.

It's not our past that dictates our actions. At the end of the day, we all do what makes us feel good. For some, hurting others makes them feel good. For others, helping others makes them feel good. What we end up doing is dependent on our character.

Consider Ed Gein, the infamous serial killer that the movie Psycho was based on. He was abused as a child, sexually, emotionally, physically. If you justify Costas actions because of what happened to him in the past, you would have to justify the actions of Ed Gein, killer and abuser of innocent women.

Now, of course Ed Gein is a very extreme example but that in essence is what is being asked here.

Pepe was worse than Diego Costa at one point. I can attest to that. It is true, however, that he has cleaned up his stupidity a lot in the near past. Full credit to Ancelotti and him for that. Ramos still has those moments where he goes brain-dead and decides to elbow people in the face for no reason. And Ronaldo loses his temper far too easily on the pitch, leading to unnecessary elbows or kicks every once in a while.

I understand why people hate them for that, and they've been red carded and banned numerous times for these types of actions. But the difference is that Ronaldo does dumb things once every 10 games, Ramos does so about once every 3 games, but Pepe (used to) and Costa does it every single game. Moreover, Costa, much like Pepe in the past, gets away with it more than 90% of the time. Only his extreme actions have been caught and taken action against. I hope Costa can clean himself up like Pepe has done, but I doubt it will happen. It is just his nature as a human being to be despicable, and changing one's innate nature is quite possibly one of the hardest tasks in the world.

^ +1

Nice article Marcus. I think strikers need some fire in their soul but when it borders on blatant cheating then maybe it's not so good. I would like to see Costa and Ibra go at each other. It would be funny because they're all bark and never actually fight anyone after they've riled them up.

@Marcus, Simply to share info and maybe in a way to highlight unjustified prejudice towards Costa

There is nothing unjustified about the hate Costa receives. He deserves every bit of criticism that comes towards his way. And you would expect his underprivileged childhood upbringing to at least make him a bit more humble and act as a professional role model for kids around the world, but it seems to me that you're trying to justify his savage and, on occasions, disgusting behavior on the pitch. There is a fine line between being a physical player and an outright dirty one. Drogba was a physical player and he did have his share of red cards throughout his career. But I would never label him as dirty.

@Amerr, well said mate.
@Alex, it seems that you and @Marcus love to point at players from other teams (in this case Pepe) to somehow expose hypocrisy in other fans, but I can tell you that it is completely futile. Everyone knows that Pepe is a dirty player. Hell, Cantona was a dirty pri** at one point in his career and I have no problem admitting that. But frankly what you guys do just comes across as insecure and indirectly implies admission that you have no argument to make other than go on the offensive. Nobody here is fooled and everyone can see that what you're doing is waving a white flag on this Costa situation, but you're pride gets in the way of admitting it. This guy doesn't deserve to wear the shirt that legendary strikers such as G. Zola, J.F. Hasselbaink and D. Drogba wore to represent Chelsea.

Great read+1.

I under stand why people dislike Costa because it's easy to judge a football player for just what he does on the pitch, but to me Costa seems to be a genuinely good guy off it. I don't know how closely you all look at him, but I watch all Chelsea games, I watch most interviews with the players, I follow various youtube channels read various blogs and follow all the players on twitter. Therefor, I feel that I've got quite a good impression on who Costa is. I can honestly say that I like Costa a lot. He's the kind a guy who goes into war on the pitch, but afterwards hug it out. He doesn't seem to hold any gruff against players he has had an altercation with afterwards, because he know what he is and why they react towards him. Above all, I like that he brings some of the old roughness back to English football, because that's a big part of the football culture in the country. Just look at the effective game-time during the last WC for example. Players nowadays are a bunch of pansies with hollywoodilona as an example.

I don't know about you, but this "Hollywoodilona" team has won more trophies in the 21st century than your club has in history (excluding Second Division titles and "Full Members Cup"). Seems like their group of "pansy" players are more capable of success than your preferred 'rough-and-tough' type of players.

Why not just link the article and give the author credit?

@Dynastian KTBFFH was not talking about who won more trophies than the other because we know that Barcelona won much more in Spain (another league/country/play style). He meant how they play and their philosophy.

Sorry but Chelsea has no behaviour lessons to give to any team, by the way nice dive from Oscar and Falcao against Southampton.

c'mon man everybody knows that barcelona tops the acting list.

Well considering Oscar - Hazard - Ramirez - Costa - Fabregas, i think its the only part of the game Chelsea would beat Barça.
Ohh add of form Falcao, desperate to have a contribution, why not winning a non existent PK.

^It was not a dive. Dive is when a player falls down without any contact and asks for a penalty or a foul. To know what a dive is Google: (Neymar or Barcelona or How to master diving in less than 1 min).

oscar, costa and fabregas yes but hazard? no way but barca has a full team of it.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL yeah Chelsea players are known for their diving skills, unlike barcelona :D

Tiki is actually right here.

Alex and KTBFFH i already take lessons from Radamel.
1) close your legs
2) goes into the GK direction
3) Starts falling before touching the GK
4) Make sure one of your legs gets a tiny contact even touching GK shirt.
5) Make an artistic fall in the ground.
6) Look to the ref as if he killed your family.

A) Penalty : Dont show our happiness fooling him.
B) Booked ( Radamel case ) : Roll on the ground and ask the fans also angry because the dive didnt succeeded.

Neymar dives at times, and so many players do including many Chelsea players and Costa as well so whats the problem here ?

You blame others for hating on Costa while you are the biggest haters when it comes to hating other teams...

The ironic Blues never change ;)

no one likes Barcelona dude and I'm totally okay with people not liking Chelsea but to call Hazard and Costa divers.. lol.. I don't know what to say.. OKAY.

You could have waited until people who actually watched the game, forgot those useless desperate dives to avoid defeat, not sure that was the right moment to talk about acting...If you are okay with it, then me too :) case closed for me.