for me, in football cheating means to trick the officials into giving favourable decisions to himself or the team. the best example is DIVING, when you go down without contact and try to trick the referee into thinking it is a foul to get the opponent carded or sent off, or to get a penalty, then that is cheating. But for fouls like this, i think it is called sacrifice. They are not out there to trick the officials, they know the consequences of their action very well. But they do it anyway to give their team every inch of chance to win/not concede, even if that means missing their next game. BIG BIG difference with cheats like diving, or feigning injury.