Friday 27 November 2009

Ire Land

Poor old Ireland. Cheated out of a place at next year’s World Cup by a cynical hand ball. I truly do feel for the fans, and even more so for the players, many of whom won’t get the chance to play on that stage, the biggest footballing party in the world, ever again.


Since I first drafted this article there have been many revelations, the fact that FIFA will not even consider a replay, Roy Keane coming out and ranting to the effect of ‘what goes around comes around’ (and then somehow swinging the topic around to himself, incredible…) and now Henry saying that he feels let down by the FFF and that he considered quitting international football.

Henry coming out with this is pretty outrageous. He wasn’t. He’s just got France to the last World Cup that he will be able to play in. He was never going to resign, but it did placate a few people. Although it made people with a modicum of sense even angrier.

It has gone as far as the Ireland's minister for justice Dermot Ahern calling for a replay, and the French minister for something or other, I don’t know, snails, agreeing with him.

The story appears to have legs (as well as hands) because of, amongst other things, the amount of conspiracy theorists claiming that Platini and Blatter are setting up the tournament. Nuttiness aside, however, the one constant has been the sanctimonious shit that the British press have been pumping out since last Wednesday night. And it’s unjustifiable. Ireland have been cheated, but the cheater is not the Devil incarnate.

Richard Williams in the Guardian had this to say;

Henry was a hopeless captain at Arsenal and he is a hopeless captain of France. On Wednesday he did not have the gumption to say, ‘OK, that wasn't a goal’ – an admission on which the referee would have been obliged to act – ‘but we'll use the remaining quarter of an hour's play to demonstrate that we are better than the Irish and more deserving of a place in the final 32 in South Africa next year.’

And, being Henry, he reacted to the final whistle not by celebrating with his team- mates but by making a show of going over and sitting down on the turf to commiserate with the dejected Richard Dunne, the most heroic of Irish players. He told Dunne that the Irish had deserved to win, and admitted that he had handled the ball. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I am not the referee.’

No, mon brave, but you are the captain of France, the country that gave us the World Cup, and here you had the chance to show us what sport can mean – or, at least, what we tell our children it means.

Our children? Oh fuck off. Anyone that has played football at any level would understand the decision that Henry made in that nanosecond. Picture the scene; you are one nil down in the deciding game to get your nation into the World Cup. You, as captain, are six yards in front of goal and the ball is going out, through a natural reaction you touch the ball with your hand, and this is where you make your decision, the ball is still going out – do you let it go out and bow out of international football, or do you move it towards your foot and set up the decisive goal that will see your team at next year’s World Cup?

His Holiness Patron Saint of Tattoos David Beckham has come out and defended Henry, after being asked what he would have done in the same situation, Beckham told Sky Sports News, ‘Who knows in that situation? You're playing in a qualifier to go through to the World Cup, you don't know what you're doing. I've been involved in big games and reacted to certain things and looked back and thought I was wrong to do that.’

How will David Beckham be remembered? As the man that got sent off and ruined England’s World Cup hopes? Or the man that ruined his life by marrying a crazy skeleton? Exactly.

At least Paul Hayward at the Guardian didn’t get carried away; ‘The double handball that sent France to South Africa at the Republic of Ireland's expense was the aristocracy micturating on the proletariat while law and order looked the other way.’

Which is a shame, as the proletariat really tied the room together… Piss off Hayward you twat.

Another point that needs to be made is that even if the goal had not stood, or indeed Henry had never handled in the first place and was unable to set up Gallas, then Ireland still would have had to survive another fifteen minutes of play against France and then go on to beat them on penalties. Which wouldn’t have happened, but I suppose that’s not the point…

There are also calls to look again at the penalty decision that went Ireland’s way when Shay Given brought down Anelka in the box. The more I watch it the more convinced I am that it’s a stonewall penalty.

I think it was Henry Winter, a man that I usually respect the opinion of, who said that Henry would go down in history as a cheat, rather than a great player – ‘like Maradona’. Having done a fair amount of travelling recently, I can put my two bobs worth in here. England – not even Britain – ENGLAND, is the only place that Maradona is remembered as being a cheat. In every other country in the world he is regarded as one of, if not the, best player of all time. If Henry will be remembered globally like Maradona – good!

There’s also a certain goal that happened forty odd years ago at Wembley that could be considered. Shall we get the Germans back for a replay? I’m not sure how many of them are still kicking about – pun intended.

But herein lies the rub. I'm afraid, some of the more vituperative comments are based on the fact WE (as in the British – or at least the Irish and the English) wanted the team in green to win and the team in blue to lose.

Another argument is ‘these things happen in football’.

(Bias warning) Rooney's dive ending Arsenal's ‘Invincible’ run. Owen's ‘heroics’ against the old enemy Argentina in 1998 and 2002. Gerrard's dive to spark the incredible comeback in Istanbul 2005. Robbie Keane tried his handball talents earlier in the exact same game, but obviously he needs to work on it more. Saying that he did very well against Georgia when he hand-balled on two separate occasions.

But, then again, that was against some random 'foreign' team – so there was no fuss made about it.

Raymond Domenech, the France coach. ‘I can see it is a mistake by the referee. To me this is the game and not cheating.’ This is pretty much how I see it. If it had happened at the other end the headlines would have read ‘Luck of the Irish’, ‘Four Fingered Clover’ and ‘Just in the craic of time’. (Thanks to Mr Blandamer for those.)

Tezza has been quoted as saying, ‘It was necessary to exploit what was exploitable.’ which probably won’t make him many friends. But it is true. That is sport. That’s life. That isn’t to excuse Henry. He cheated. My point is, so would you. And if you say you wouldn’t, you’re a liar. And if there’s one thing worse than a cheat, it’s a liar.

In conclusion, if there’s one thing that we can take out of the whole debacle, is that video replays are essential if the game is going to carry on getting faster, and having more and more money pumped into it.

The rules for football were invented when the average height of a man was 3ft 7 and the fastest man in the world ran the hundred metres in a week. Two linesmen and a ref was sufficient then, but it’s not anymore. It works in other sports, football would be no different. The ball is in play in an average match for under an hour – to suggest that the occasional referral to a video official would slow the game down is twaddle. The technology exists now. Just use it.

So finally, in case anyone was in any doubt, all Irish people are silly and Henry’s still my hero. I love him. And he loves me too. He said so.

2 comments:

  1. I love these two men.... Jordan Green

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  2. Maybe Henry / Maradona et al should of gone round trying to break legs, be a total donkey and gain REAL respect. I would of handled it, winked and spat on Rudi Voller's mullet.

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