On Topic; Off Your Rocker

If by "initiates contact" you mean Grosso grabbed Neill and threw him down in front of him, I must have missed that. But if you didn't mean that, then Grosso did not "initiate" contact.

Shourin is flat out wrong. Look at the video again. Grosso did not even continue along the path he was travelling, he tried to go around Neill on the right.

Review the video slowly: Grosso beats the first Aussie and sends the ball to toward the touchline, the ball travels a few yards and Neill slides/sticks out his leg, Grosso uses his left foot to redirect the ball hard right to go around Neill, the ball passes Grosso's right foot (AT THIS POINT NEILL IS ROLLING BACK TOWARD GROSSO), and Grosso plants his left foot (by Neill's arse) and steps with his right foot past Neill's right hand (a frame by frame view, it even looks like Neill is making contact with Grosso's left foot), Neill continues to fall back and, in the process, has his (Neill's) shoulder fall behind Grosso's right leg. At this point, Grosso looks off balance and falling. Neill ducks underneath Grosso's left leg and Grosso hits the deck.

So what was the ref thinking? He was thinking that Neill took Grosso out of the play. Direct kick in the box for a PK. Is there any doubt this would have been a direct free kick if it happened outside the box? In the 60th minute? The problem is that you can agree that it would have been a DFK in the 60th minute, but not in the box in stoppage time. I have no time for that kind of ref.

If he embellished the fall, I don't think he had to much. This is not a "dive." A "dive" is when a player after minimal contact "creates" a foul out of whole cloth. Say what you will about Grosso's motives, but this was not a dive.

Contrast this with Adriano's yellow in the Brazil-Ghana match. Adriano dove. Slight contact with the keeper and BOOM! on the ground. The ref (properly) gave him a yellow card.

I think this is a case where first impression rules regardless of the "facts." I don't buy what Grosso said as proof either: replace the word "option" with the word "choice" and you will get what Grosso meant. "I had no choice, but to go down."