"Played for 15 years...", certainly not at that level or you wouldn't say that.
Should France or Thierry Henry be proud absolutely not " And they are not" is it understandable that the Irish be pissed off? of course....but they are barking at the wrong tree, The French team has been on the other side of the fence many times and for much more important world cup games. France has been screwed by bad referee calls more than its fare share and guess what ...The final result was never in question. Matter of fact France vs Serbia game which ended in a draw 1 vs 1 was a big miss call by the referee which prevented France from winning the game which most likely would have pushed France on top of their group.
Referees have , do and will continue to make mistake even crucial ones. That's part of the game.
To compare this with Maradona's hand of god is ridiculous and if I have to explain why then it is clear you have not learned much about soccer.
To say Thierry should be fined or punished after the game is total nonsense.
The only punishment should have been yellow or red card if referee sees it during the game.
Even Roy Keane the great Irish player defends Thierry and blame the Irish team for missing big opportunities.
It was clear Ireland outplayed France on that day.....But we all know it 's not always the better team that wins at the end of final game. France played knowing they had one goal lead and Ireland played knowing they had to score.
To say Ireland would have been in the WC without the handball is also ridiculous. at that point is was a draw and penalty kicks are not much more than a coin flip. Matter of fact the way the french goal keeper was playing that day I would have bet some money on the french team to win any penalty kicks series against any team in the world.
No one disputes the handball (even Thierry admits it -Maradona never did!)
So now it's all about fairplay, Thierry is a cheater and FIFA needs to show the world that fairplay is important....Give me a freaking break!!
You want fairplay, Then have Ireland replay the match vs Georgia where the referee gave a fake penalty to Ireland that allowed then to draw 1 vs 1. Like Roy Keane said about that game defending Thierry...no one asked about replaying the game then.
You want fairplay, lets replay every game that was lost because a penalty was given to a player diving for no reason other than to draw a penalty kick from the referee(You can take 2 stars away from the Italian jersey on that one alone).
You want fairplay, then lets red card every player that claims the ball when it goes out of bounds despite knowing perfectly it is not theirs (that's basically every players on every team). Now how many goals came from such false claims?
That's cheating too!!
(I won't even talk about pulling jersey and holding players when the referee is not looking)
The point is, they all do it and in Thierry's position 95% of players would have done the same, because at that point even he couldn't know for sure that his play would lead to a goal . It is the referee's job to prevent players from getting away with it. Yellow cards, red cards whatever is needed.
Correct me if I am wrong but no international team has ever replayed a game because of a bad referee call. not any despite all the international tournaments that ever took place. But Ireland has to have their Prime minister ask the French President to get involved with this ....How ridiculous.
I guess Ireland figures France is used to getting screwed if there is one team out there for which this could happen it has to be France...
Soccer is like a giant poker game, once you get used to receiving bad beats, it's hard to feel bad when you give one out yourself. It's part of the game. nobody likes it but we all know the rules, and if you can't take it don't play the game...