Soccer players have been known to dive on occasion, but USA midfielder Jermaine Jones wasn’t embellishing Thursday afternoon at the 2014 FIFA World Cup when he took a spill onto the pitch. The reason for his fall, however, had nothing to do with the opponent.
Jones was racing toward the goal in the first half of the USA’s Group G showdown with Germany in Brazil when he went crashing into the referee. The two were running up the field and not paying a ton of attention to their surroundings when they collided.
Surprisingly, Jones — a world-class athlete — took the worst of the collision. He went down hard and slid across the rain-soaked pitch.
Luckily for the Americans, Jones — who scored a beautiful goal against Portugal on Sunday — was fine.
