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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/8370497.stm

Keane tells Ireland to get over it and that Ireland got a totally undeserved penalty against Georgia that enabled them to even get to the qualifiers.

For the sake of “FAIR PLAY”, the match between France / Ireland should be replayed. This is what the majority of supporters in Ireland and France wish.

FIFA are just a bunch of “political” bureaucrats !!!
How dare such an organization put themselves above the wishes of both supporters, and footballers and sportsmen all over the world.

As an Irishman and like most Irish supporters, we are not angry with Henry. He just had too much passion and wanted his national team to win.
But these “MATCH OFFICIAL (” should never walk on a football pitch– 2 hand balls + 2 offside !!!!

Fair comment, Brian.

Laurie, all France supporters, hell all football fans should go right on over to Bobby McMahon’s brilliant commentary on the foxsoccer.com website. McMahon is a Scottish expat living in Canada who works for Fox Soccer Channel. He’s far more level-headed and informed than any of the pundits in England.

It starts out like this:

The “Henry Incident” has provided an opportunity for outlandish stereo-typing and xenophobia. Opportunists have embraced a platform from which to moralize while others see the chance to advocate the red herring solution of video replay. (When Tony Cascarino lectures on ethics and fair play and isn’t laughed out of town then the apocalypse must be at hand.)

Certainly the goal should have been disallowed and the Republic of Ireland and their fans have a right to be aggrieved and to feel badly let down. The officials got the call wrong – either through not seeing the play or wrongly interpreting Henry’s actions. However, the debate was quickly hijacked and rapidly distorted. The hijackers seem to fall into three categories.

….

Then goes on with this:

The final clique is the “Henry is a cheat” bandwagon-jumpers. (Is is just a coincidence that such a high percentage of video proponents also seem quick to besmirch Henry? Perhaps it comes from watching replay after replay is super-slow-mo and the V-Js have forgotten that the game is played in real time.)

Cheating surely requires premeditation. From the time the ball skips off the turf to the time it leaves Henry’s hand it can be no longer than one second. Essentially Henry had to deal with the following in that miniscule amount of time. The game was in extra time, he was traveling at a good clip towards the Irish goal, the ball was skipping off a greasy surface and heading towards him at an angle.

To “cheat” Henry would have had to act with a level of premeditation that would be nothing short of superhuman. (This is not supporting the notion that Henry did not commit a foul – there is no direct requirement for intent – by the conventional meaning – in the laws of the game. Undoubtedly the goal should not have been allowed to stand.)

But surely it is a case of a player reacting in a way that is quiet natural given the circumstances and in particular the time available. A defender on the goal line and with a ball blasted at him within arm’s length will almost always move his hand towards the ball. In both instances it is an instinct fine tuned through thousands of hours of practice and playing.

To label Henry a cheat in such circumstances requires us to cast a wide net over almost everyone who has ever played the game. Handball – cheat, pushing off a defender- cheat, picking a defender at a corner kick – cheat, moving ten yards up the touchline for a throw-in – cheat.

That leaves us with the failure by Henry to admit to the referee that the ball stuck his arm and hand. The French captain is taking a roasting for that as well. The laws of the game do not require self policing by players but that can be written in if the powers-that-be see the advantages of such a system.

We could then look forward to the day when a defender admits to a referee that he did in fact trip the opponent and insist on being sent off. Or in the absence of such a change can we look forward to the same level of indignant protests that we have seen and heard in the last 24-hours the next time a defender fails to own up to a wrong-doing?
————

Read the whole thing: http://community.foxsports.com/bobbymcmahon/blog/2009/11/19/the_thierry_henry_incident_#comments

when cheathierry dived against spain and portugal was it because he was “reacting in a way that is quiet natural given the circumstances and in particular the time available”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48KxomccYNU

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

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

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

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.

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

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

La maniére francaise: corriger la fortune. Bah !

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

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

Laurie, I think I liked the first picture better. It was slightly more pathetic (like our team).

Ha. Maybe I’ll include them both.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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”

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.

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

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.

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.

Very nice posting. Thanks.
Bathmate