NRR: France's Hand-of-God goal v. Ireland

"A hand ball in the box is about as bad as you can get." Sorry I would have to disagree. I have seen a lot worse.

A hand ball in the box is as stupid as you can get...rarely does it go unnoticed.

Goals have been taken away for handballs that never existed (caused by lying defenders ...another great sign of fairplay never punished).

"Two hand balls is even worse." No, getting away with two handballs in the box is unthinkable at this level.

"Scoring off it then celebrating the goal makes is unthinkable", Thierry never scored off the handball, if I remember correctly he passed the ball with his right foot and Gallas scored with a header.

Celebrating with your teammate that just scored to take your team to the WC is not that unthinkable at this point in the game.

" He dove famously in a game against Spain and again while playing for Barcelona. Replays showed zero contact."

I won't argue with you there, as we know most players have done it during their career at one time or another , that does not make it right but part of the game which the referee needs to sanction severely when caught.

as far as being "...famous.." for it, I would have to disagree.

I would not have a problem if Henry was sanctioned by FIFA for his mistake which he has acknowledged. But i can tell you that I have rarely heard a true cheater say they would like to replay the game and give the team another shot at winning if possible especially a game of such importance.

Lets be honest, if this was not for the world cup it would never have been blown out of proportion like it has been. Therefore the real issue was not what Henry did but how unfair and sad that the Irish team was eliminated an such way especially after playing so well that day!

Peace

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Not as bad as Maradona's - at least Henry finished it off with his foot

France should go to the World Cup, but Henry should pay for his cheating by being banned from it

I would go back to talking about something you know a bit about.

Not that I could tell you what that is mind you, given my experience of you on a couple of forums.[/quote]

You again - as usual a general waffling critisism of me. That is not really any type of argument. Specifically what do you disagree with?

Put up or shut up

actually wrote:

So who saw the quote of the FAI representative when it was confirmed there would be no replay.

I would have thought he would look good if he said something like this:

'We know referees make horrible decisions, like when we played Georgia we benefited from a decision which was more inexplicable than that on Wednesday night. However, FIFA has to take a stand against cheats - and by ordering this game to be replayed and banning Henry for a certain number of games, they could have made that stand.'

Instead all we got was:

'Whine whine whine...its not fair....whine whine whine.'

Seriously. Why the F*** are Ireland more deserving of a replay than Georgia or any other team which has been obviously screwed over.

Congratulations... you can para-phrase Roy Keane

If you had even remembered about that penalty you would have mentioned it 5 pages earlier in the thread, rather that the morning after Roy Keane make a statement with the SAME points

emmm....I actually did mention it earlier.

Go back and check.

And even if I was just paraphrasing Roy Keane - it does not change the accuracy of it.

And so it continues...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/8386207.stm

Honestly, for something so egregious as Henry's handball (seen by millions live, and replayed hundreds of times), justice is needed. If FIFA wants to hold on to its "Fair Play" campaign, at least a replay of the game is necessary. Of course, Ireland shouldn't just be allowed in as an extra team.

And I don't agree with Blatter's comparison of Ireland with Costa Rica in being "robbed" by a bad decision. Significant offsides decisions (called rightly or wrongly)occur in EVERY game, unfortunately, but Henry's action was so astonishing that it had commentators searching back 20 years to Maradonna for comparison.

errr...or searching back 20 minutes for when Robbie Keane handled it - only that did not lead to a goal.

No way can I see how FIFA can justify some kind of suspension for the handball. If the referee had seen it Henry would most likely have been booked and the goal disallowed. And the game would have continued and in all likelyhood France would have gone on to win.

The only reason this became a big issue was because of the poor quality officiating/positioning by the referee and his assistants, and football's insistence not to use TV replays.

If Henry is banned then he is purely a scapegoat for FIFA, to take attention away from the fact that referees are poor and the game NEEDS tv replays to ensure fairness.

goethe wrote:

if you ask me that was a pretty damn athletic play by henry

It's amazing how good you can look when everyone else has to use their feet.