bradley headstone
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Posted: November 20th 2009
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Is it ok to cheat if you say you are sorry?
Much will be written about the inglorious qualification of the French national players, I hesitate to use the word team…it seems inappropriate under Dominech, most will condemn them and our once favourite import, Thierry Henry.
Me too! Not so much for what he did, frankly any truly competitive footballer at any level will seek to gain an advantage. In Henry’s case he was too intelligent, too quick witted for his own good. Most footballers would have watched the ball sail off before belatedly thrusting a hand in vain.
It’s this intelligence that damns Henry; the consequences of an apparently spontaneous act will dawn slowly on most. I’m sure that Henry knew the moment Gallas scored what would occur and with that in mind I find his post-match contrite peace making with Richard Dunne particularly galling. (gauling? – Ed applying for Sun copywriting gig)
Once, we were charmed by Henry’s shrugs, raised eyebrows and playful disdain, it’s all rather worn thin now. Like many a fading star before him, he’s trading on his usp, desperately dragging the last ounce of commercial value. The tap may be turned off now.
It’s been interesting to watch the faintly embarrassed response of the French. Not for them the indignant defiance of a proud footballing nation. They appear to be passionately involved in their sport for the duration of the event and the moment the final whistle blows their interest wanes.
The Irish on the other hand will never forget, there will be songs, there will be TV programmes, there will almost certainly be a trilogy of comic novels with the fateful moment as the catalyst to their narrative. But there won’t be a world cup.
This really is the true heartbreak of last night. Having thoroughly out thought, fought and out tried the French they at least deserved the lottery of the penalty kick. Trappatoni or indeed, trap ‘o’ toni as he’s known has done a remarkable job. His isn’t a great Irish team. There are some serious journeymen punching well above their weight, only Ireland would employ veteran midfielder Kevin Kilbane (or Zinedine Kilbane and his bag of trick as my mate John Kelly would have it) at left back.
They lack creativity in midfield, again only the Irish would lose their most creative player to jibes about premature hair loss, c’mon Steven, do you not think Wayne Rooney gets verbals about his hairline every time he reports for England.
If endeavour, work rate and in this case sheer bravura counts for anything then justice was not served. Football isn’t like that though. Were that the case there would’ve been no seeding for the play offs.
France won’t win the world cup, neither would Ireland, it’ll be interesting to see the response Henry gets from the football world. I suspect he’s already planned his reaction through the summer, I think in Thierryworld very little is spontaneous.
In football, you are allowed to cheat; you just have to ensure you don’t get caught. I’m sure Henry is sorry he got caught.