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

Posted from  United States

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.

Posted from  United States

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

Posted from  United States

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

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

Posted from  United States

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

Posted from  United States

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…

Posted from  France

Shame to French President.
Shame to FIFA
Shame to Thierry Henry
What is there being proud to reach the world cup final throuh cheats.
I like to see a replay to settle the issue.
I like to see a ban on Henry for the world cup.
I like to see Barcelona sack Henry.
FIFA don’t let the second mistake go on unpunished from the first infamous Maradonna hand again England.

Posted from  Singapore

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

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

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

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”

Posted from  France

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.

Keep it simple:

Ireland would be going to the World Cup if

the Assistant Referee and Center Referee were in their correct position (Can someone tell me why the center referee was standing closer to the kicker on a free kick in such an important game?? and the AR needs to be much closer to the goal line when Henry handles the ball — look where he is standing when Henry handles the ball !!! — Maybe they need to be in better physical shape

the Irish coaching staff and players should have held up the restart of game until they showed the center referee a video of the handball. A referee can overturn a call easily before the restart of play.

The powers that be could also have showed the infamous handball on the stadium screen like they did with Zidane and the ref subsequently gave him a delayed red card because of the video. (I think the game was played in France so this might be asking the French to be too honest)

In the future, get with the 21st or 20th century and allow officials to view replays of videotape clips. Its not like they score many goals in World Cup matches.

Posted from  United States

Some good points Mike. It’s ridiculous that they refuse to use video to make correct decisions.