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Post-Game Recovery, OR: “But I’m SAD!”

crying baby A few years back, when my daughter was maybe three, she did one of those things which, before you have kids, you swear your little darling will never do. I can’t even remember what it was. Bit her brother, maybe? And so I chastised her, causing her to burst into tears. Then I turned all my attention to comforting her brother.

Eventually she realizes the sobbing isn’t working, so she asks me if I’m going to do anything for her. I say no, because it was her behavior that caused all of this to begin with.

So she sobs, “But…but…but I’m SAD!!!!”

That’s kind of how I feel right now. I realize, as a France fan, that I have no right to feel a need to be comforted. But…but…but I’m SAD!!!!

This isn’t the way I wanted qualifying to end. If we’d won legitimately, I could be legitimately celebrating and it would be wonderful. If we’d lost, I could be legitimately commiserating, which I think would actually feel better. If we’d even outplayed Ireland on Wednesday, it might feel like a karmic victory and be acceptable. As it is, though, we’re left with a kind of sad limbo. To paraphrase Bixente Lizarazu, I’m happy they qualified, but don’t feel like I can party.

Not sure where the road back is. Eventually I’m sure we’ll all come to accept this, and to be grateful France is in WC 2010.

Or we’ll be grateful until, under the tutelage of Domenech, they again go out in the group stage.

For now, though? For now, I’m just sad.

As a first step back, if you’re looking to remind yourself that France does have some legit talent, please watch this video of all France’s goals in qualifying, made by our very own commenter Jean-François. (This video has gotten over 40,000 pageviews since the game and become something of a lightning rod for everybody’s feelings about the game and the goal. Feel free to leave your own comments.)

And by special request: The photo I originally posted. Which depicts your mood better?

crying child

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Displaying the most recent 25 comments from a total of 29 comments.

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By Terry from Naples fl | November 20th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Top

i guess that i am more calm it is what it is,stuff like that happends allot,time to move on,maybe a get Laurent Blanc to coach, France has great players.It’s kind of like a bad jockey (domenech) with a great horse, now what happens when you have a great jockey(Laurent Blanc) and Great horse (lES BLUES) listen now one likes what happend but now what can you do i am moving one

By Adam | November 20th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Top

waaaah! waaaaah! waaaah! The Irish are a bunch of babies. Quit yer whinin abd get over it! It’s just a game.

Posted from United States United States

By sandrahn | November 20th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Top

Michel-Olivier, do you get angry only when FRENCH players cheat?

Posted from United States United States

By sandrahn | November 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
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And btw, john, the people who screeching the loudest about Henry are the people who ALREADY hated him and hated France, like you. Henry haters and France haters are LOVING this whole thing so they can indulge in their favorite pasttime of trashing Henry and France, it’s got nothing to do with any moral sensibilities.

Posted from United States United States

By sandrahn | November 20th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Top

Oop, sorry, that last paragraph was meant for another blog.

Posted from United States United States

By Michel-Olivier | November 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Top

@sandrahn
yes especially french players from metropolitaine because they have no manners

Posted from United States United States

By hawk | November 20th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Top

La maniére francaise: corriger la fortune. Bah !

By hawk | November 20th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Top

sandrahn:
Henry-haters? U kidding ? Any morals gone overboard, huh ?!

By Earthwire | November 20th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Top

Worst of luck to France in South Africa.
Boohs for them in every match (hopefully just four).

By Inara | November 20th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
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Laurie, I think I liked the first picture better. It was slightly more pathetic (like our team).

By Laurie | November 20th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Top

Ha. Maybe I’ll include them both. :-)

By Foreverzidane | November 20th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Top

As Sandrahn posted the blog from an Irish reporter, I really would like to know how come no one is grilling Given for tripping Anelka?
How come he didn’t tell the Ref. that he just committed a foul in the box?

By Kxevin | November 21st, 2009 at 2:20 am
Top

The Keane comment should end all debate. It won’t, but it should.

I feel a bit confident, knowing that if we have a healthy squad, even with our dimwit of a coach we are in with a shot.

I’m not sad, just frustrated. But as a Barca fan, I’ve been through it before with the Chelsea match last season, where we were labeled “cheats” because of a poor ref, just like Henry. That’s life, and the howls of the allegedly aggrieved.

By Doumé | November 21st, 2009 at 6:01 am
Top

Is it just me , or the comment area is formatted really weird today? Hmmm…

Posted from France France

By lefutur | November 21st, 2009 at 10:39 am
Top

one of the tragedies from this whole debacle, besides the misfortune of the irish fans, is that noone is talking about how poorly france played and how completely outcoached domenech was for 120 mins.

domenech has the perfect distraction from having to actually talk about what happened to his team on the pitch.

Posted from United States United States

By john | November 21st, 2009 at 11:05 am
Top

A wonderful interview which talks not just of the obvious hanball but his comport after.

Enjoy
LONDON: Football legend Eric Cantona has said that he would have hit striker Thierry Henry if he was one of the Republic of Ireland players
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cheated of their World Cup spot.
The former France and Manchester United star said: “What shocks me the most quite frankly, is not the hand-ball.
“What shocks me the most is that this player, at the end of the game, in front of the TV cameras, went to sit down next to an Ireland player to comfort him – when he had just screwed him.”
Cantona could not believe Henry chose to sit and chat with Republic of Ireland defender Richard Dunne after his handball set up William Gallas for the goal, which ended Ireland’s World Cup dream in Paris.
Cantona, infamous for his kung-fu kick at a fan, added: “If I had been an Irishman, he wouldn’t have lasted three seconds.”
Henry has finally admitted that the World Cup qualifying play-off should be replayed.
“The fairest solution would be to replay the game but it is not in my control,” The Sun quoted him, as saying.
The incident has destroyed Henry’s reputation as a football ambassador.

Regards

Posted from Canada Canada

By Jean-François | November 21st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Top

Now that I am out of a state of shock, I can see that Henry really isn’t a cheater. Someone made the point that soccer is played in real time. All the media does is show it in slow motion, which really makes Henry look like a cheater. In Henry’s defense, he is 33 and it was the 103rd minute. He must have been fucking exhausted, you could tell he was not on the top of his game. His reactions made him reach for it, and there was no whistle, so why waste the perfect chance?

Thanks for including my video on the thread. I am amazed at the attention it has gotten, I only expected a couple hundred views, at this rate it will make it to 100k! I think a lot of people are using this incident to let out racist comments. I had to remove countless racist comments from my video, but I gave up now. People are calling Henry “classless” using classless language. Also they say they’ve “lost all respect” for Henry and the French, when they don’t bring much respect themselves. I would appreciate criticism, but true criticism….Also, if you would like go on it and give it 5 stars, the haters kind of destroyed the rating.

Posted from United States United States

By Laurie | November 21st, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Top

Doume, it’s not just you. It happens occasionally (but only in some browsers) and I haven’t been able to figure out which coding quirk is causing it. If it drives you insane, everything looks normal in Firefox.

Lefutur, I’m in complete agreement. The only person I’ve seen who brought up how horrible France looked was Bixente Lizarazu. And when it comes to preparing for SA, the handball is meaningless. The play isn’t.

By Laurie | November 21st, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Top

Jean-François, I’m going in to give you five stars right now. :-)

By Doumé | November 21st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Top

Laurie,
Thanks for the browser info; I’m using IE7. Not fun to scroll back and forth left and right.
Basically the French commentary from Larqué/Wenger was all about how France sucked (more from Larqué actually) so it’s nothing new to me. I still insist on the fact we need to put together a defense, because without some bad booboos from Mexes and Escudé, we would never had to face Ireland in the first place.
BUT I believe that the Irish executed wonderfully a game plan which was to hamper anything going on the midfield, absolutely disrupt, destroy, frustrate, any attempt at construction like the French like to do. They were great at it, intercepting and robbing all they could, imposing a pace which was not suiting France at all. I figured that the physical demands for that pressing game are huge and they would eventually get tired, which they did, but later than I thought, like around the 70th minute, where France started taking control and -yes- dominating in general. In some ways I have rarely seen that quality and intensity of pressing other than that from Ireland – not with Serbia or Romania or Austria …maybe Portugal in 06, and even…so the French team we saw was guilty to not have anticipated what tactical changes the Greens would do and sort of taking the game where they had left it on Saturday night. It was pitiful for the most part but I don’t think it’s quite illustrative of what they can really do; they were way too predictable in their passes and directions. One guy like Ribéry would have introduced something a little different, just like what Govou and Malou brought in a lesser way.
But, to be frank, the Irish, while they played that press game very well, didn’t construct a whole lot of stuff, and many of their attacks ended across the sideline.

And, Inara, I really think if I was in the same room as Roy Keane, I’d make sure I put my phone on “silent” :)

Posted from France France

By jeff | November 21st, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Top

I agree with Lefutur. I’ve been a moderate, relatively, about Domenech, but that performance was pathetic, and I want him gone more than ever.

By Jean-Francois | November 22nd, 2009 at 12:12 am
Top

I was thinking about buying one of those new jerseys, only one problem… Whose name should I have on the back? I was going to have Hanry given this will probably be his last WC, but I’m afraid of assassination at this point. Maybe Gallas? Or a prospect for the future? (Gourcuff, Gignac, Benzema, Govou) my current one,(the 09 one with the crazy blue blue stripes) has Nasri on it, but I’m afraid (in the eyes of domenech) that he is a lost cause.

Also. I was thinking, Les bleus have been in my mind constantly for about 2 weeks now. And there will not be another game until Spring most likely. What is there to do? I was thinking watch some champions league, but I think that I need to do something else. Twittling my thumbs isn’t working :(

Posted from United States United States

By Foreverzidane | November 22nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Top

I ordered my shirt last week and I chose number 5 William Gallas, someone who’s been so under appreciated . Sorry to say but Nasri has shown absolutely
nothing and a very horrible acquisition for the Gunners, funny I bought his shirt when he became a Gunner.

By jeff | November 24th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Top

Jean-Francois –

I do yard work while listening to audiobooks on my ipod from audible.com. It works. My pre-occupation is actually more about how much I dislike work, but the solution should work for your case just as well, or better.

Posted from United States United States

By bath mateus | December 18th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Top

Very nice posting. Thanks.
Bathmate

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