I remember wishing death on the man right after the incident. Four years on it was probably a bit harsh....
I remember wishing death on the man right after the incident. Four years on it was probably a bit harsh....
You know a ref is scratching the bottom of the barrel for sympathy and understanding when the tearful mother has to be dragged in front of the camera, baring the pain to the world that only a mother can carry.
The bloody irony.....
http://www.theguardian.com/football/...eeding-ranking
Yeah, all over Facebook...
:@
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Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy
Not having a facebook account ,haunts me again......damn you zuckerberg!
While the nation went into meltdown, RTE's panel got bogged down into stupid arguments over Trap's style of play, and how many of our players play for CL teams after the game.
However valid they are, there is a time and a place, and that wasn't it.
My heart bleeds.Quote:
Originally Posted by back of the net
Lads if ye keep posting this thread will never descend into the wilderness :)
I find it particulary hard to take myselfQuote:
Originally Posted by BonnieShels
Was reading that Kevin Kilbane mentions in his Autobiography that it was the players who went against traps style in Paris that night and that they decided to put the ball down and play that night
Weren't Ukraine and Poland screwed over with ranking points for these qualifiers because they weren't playing competitive games the previous two years. Same happened with the Swiss for World Cup 2010 qualifiers after they hosted Euro 2008 with Austria. Fifa didn't help them, but of course France are different. They will change things to facilitate them.
I can't deny taking a certain amount of pleasure from their mild misfortune (and why complain only now, so late in the day?), but the FFF's issue isn't with the seeding system per se. They do have a point. Their problem is that the second-placed finishers in groups of six teams have had an unfair opportunity to accumulate more ranking points, which are taken into account for the purposes of seeding, throughout the campaign. As France were drawn in the only group of five teams, they were placed at a disadvantage due to the fact that competitive fixtures offered more ranking points than friendly fixtures they were entitled to play in their place.Quote:
Originally Posted by back of the net
Their is a clear discrepancy in FIFA's approach here; they discount all second-placed finishers' results against the bottom-placed finisher in groups of six teams for the purpose of ranking the second-placed finishers and take all group games into account for general FIFA ranking and seeding purposes, yet both rankings contribute in some way to determining who will play who in the play-offs.
Yes, FIFA make the rules up as they go along.
We all know that from four years ago.
Boo-hoo...
Lock. This. Thread. Now.
Dont see the point in locking it bonnie. It was a massive event in irish football so imo it shud be kept open. Absolutely understand why some ppl dont want reminder but if thats the case then just dont read the thread
Sligo football fan/artist Dan Leydon's started this project of one football based piece of art work a day recently updating on his Twitter account.
Day Three: http://instagram.com/p/gdXL86BLnL/
An interesting segment from Jeremy Smith's French Football Weekly interview with Phillipe Auclair - the author of Thierry Henry: Lonely at the Top - republished by Póg Mo Goal, covering Henry's reputation in France and certain other matters: http://pogmogoal.com/the-blog-reel/h...story-2/16451/
What's all this about Robbie doing "something far worse for Ireland against Georgia"? This?:Quote:
Four years on from THAT goal, we’re revisiting an extract from French Football Weekly’s Jeremy Smith’s interview with Phillipe Auclair, author of Thierry Henry: Lonely At The Top. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Henry is a divisive figure in French football. Perceived as aloof, an adversary of Zidane, and the apparent leader of a shameful strike at the 2010 World Cup, we look at the Frenchman’s standing in history, and that night in Paris.
JS: Why is he loved in England and, maybe, reviled in France?
PA: The funny thing is that, in France, outside the football world, he still has a positive image, judging by polls and studies for the most popular sportsman. But very often they are people who are not interested in sports, so they will name Yannick Noah and Zidane – Noah played his last game over 15-20 years ago and Zizou has been retired for a while now, as a player.
Within football he always had this image of being quite aloof and distant and quite manipulative. This is the reputation that he’s got in the media, but he also has it amongst people who love football; people who will read for example France Football will not necessarily have a very positive image of Thierry.
I think, as well, one of the problems is that, even though he is France’s record goalscorer, there is this weird idea that he failed to deliver for France. Which I find astonishing, but it’s true! I mean, he was top scorer in 1998, he was probably our best player in 2000, he scored the goal against Brazil in 2006 [the only assist he ever received from Zidane for France], he scored the goal that took us to the [2006] World Cup, in Ireland.
He was pretty much top scorer in every major tournament – even in 2002, he scored as many as anyone else!
That’s quite funny! And in the Confederations Cup of 2003, he was superb in that tournament [Henry won the Golden Ball and the Golden Boot, for best player and top scorer], and it was the Zidane-free tournament. And even in Euro 2004, he was absolutely knackered on the back of that incredibly draining season with Arsenal, but he wasn’t awful, there were others who were far worse.
But I think he suffered from that – he suffered from the fact that there was this idea, this theory, that he and Zidane were adversaries, were rivals, with Zizou very much reluctant to pass on the keys of the team to his natural successor, who was of course Thierry. And then of course there was the Hand of Gaul in Paris. And then there was Knysna (When French players refused to train following Nicolas Anelka and Raymond Domenech’s bust-up at the World Cup in South Africa). And Knysna, he didn’t come out of that well at all. That probably explains why people have got quite a different attitude.
I mean also, his career happened outside France. His career was Arsenal, then Barcelona, then the Red Bulls. When he was at Monaco, it was not a time of unmitigated triumph. He had problems there, serious problems. He also had great moments, in Europe in particular. He was a kid – but a kid who was already considered, already seen, at the age of 18 or 19, as the superstar of tomorrow.
I feel that part of the problem with Henry is that he was too good during his career. Good as ingentil [well-behaved] rather than a good player. Maybe if he’d shown more of a different side to him on the pitch – as we’ve spoken about Cantona, Zidane – if he’d done more controversial things?
The guy who is at the top of the tree from 2000-2005 is just perfect behaviour – and whilst being dished some very rough treatment indeed – when they could get close to him, that is!
But you might be right – it may have played against him that there was no moment of darkness, so to speak. There are some players who walk between the raindrops, like Ryan Giggs – I think it’s one caution in… I can’t remember but the figures are extraordinary. But compared to a Cantona, a Steven Gerrard, even a Lampard – they did have their moments. But Thierry… so therefore everything seems a little bit… it’s very, very high, but it’s a plateau – it doesn’t have the peaks that people remember.
And then, the handball…
Even then, if it had been another player, would it have been such a scandal? I mean Robbie Keane did something far worse for Ireland against Georgia, and I don’t know that he has such a stain on him. Nobody thinks that he’s an angel, or a saint.
OK, Henry shouldn’t have celebrated the way he did, that’s the mistake.
Especially as he doesn’t usually celebrate.
Exactly. And you know, he also said, well it was Gallas [who scored], we were born on the same day, we went to Clairefontaine together… Come on – you’re not the closest of friends, we know that! And then the whole thing with Richard Dunne at the end, that was bad, I didn’t like that at all. If he had gone up to them and said “I’m really sorry I’ve done it”… but I don’t think that was the dialogue.
But it rankles, it rankles. And especially since there were so many nice guys on that Irish team, those guys were really great. You know, Kevin Kilbane is one of the loveliest men in football as well, Shay Given. But it was like “the *******s have won”. To say that about your own country – it’s horrible! And that’s one thing I can’t get over, I will really never get over it.
I wonder if it would have been different if France had dominated the match but just hadn’t scored…
Yeah, or had a penalty denied, or – I don’t know – one of the players had been injured by a bad tackle by Sean St. Ledger or Keith Andrews! [Laughs] It’s true. But the fact is that the Irish were the better side, were playing the better football. I remember thinking at the time I know where the next goal is going to come from and it’s not going to be from someone in a blue shirt. We were all convinced of it. And I think that they knew it.
It’s strange because – I don’t know, it’s only a personal opinion – but is there a moment that you associate with Thierry which immediately comes to mind? There’s loads of moments, loads of images – you know, the goal against Manchester United, the way he flicked the ball on his chest [sic], you remember that.
But I’m also wondering if it’s a product of the TV age, perhaps, more than anything else. It’s giving you the impression that you were there when you weren’t. And giving far greater relief – in the proper sense – to an event which was actually quite flat to start with. And I’m convinced about that – I’m actually going to write something about that – I think people don’t know how to watch football anymore, I think their perception of football is wrong. They watch too much television, there are too many replays, too much slo-mo, people don’t understand the game anymore. I really do think that. People who do understand the game are people who go to stadiums, who don’t rely on the jumbotron to tell them what happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy66Aw_zxgk
:rolleyes:
Haven't the slightest idea what he's talking about. Sounds like a desperate attempt to "balance" things out in his appraisal of Henry.
I fear Robbie's been a victim of some Chinese whispers and that Phillipe Auclair ought to cast a more critical eye or ear over what he reads or hears in future.
Of course, the two incidents were not inter-related and had occurred independently of one another, but there were schools of karmic thought - including the "you win some; you lose some", the "get over it" and simply the "anti-Robbie/Delaney/soccer" schools of thought - that said we had no right to feel aggrieved after the "bad luck" of the Henry hand-ball incident due to the "good luck" we'd allegedly enjoyed during the qualification group. The winning of a "soft penalty" against Georgia was pin-pointed as a prime example of good fortune had been justifiably "evened out" by the bad fortune that eventually came our way.
And so, as the chattering classes chattered and the twittering classes twittered, this fanciful notion, grounded primarily in loose tongue and text, that we were the lucky ones gathered legs and snowballed. People who'd never even seen the Georgia incident were telling us we were hypocrites. Someone overheard that Robbie was involved; whatever about the ball having skimmed off the Georgian defender's arm, Robbie looked like he'd cradled it in his arms as he took it down in the box before compounding Georgian misery by having the audacity to step up and coolly slot home the penalty. Rumour was he might even have murdered a Georgian in the process.
I'd forgotten where I'd posted the above but it seems I was incorrect, along with the French federation, happily. This article that thischarmingman brought to our attention in the rankings thread spells out the facts: http://www.theguardian.com/football/...raw-friendliesQuote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
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As an aside, France recently complained that they were disadvantaged by being in a five-team group, which gave them two fewer qualifiers and therefore fewer chances to accumulate ranking points. This is total nonsense – the addition of a feeble sixth team to their group would have enormously reduced their point-scoring potential. Had they finished qualifying with a 100% record, and taking their opponents' rankings at the point the draw was made, their matches would, on average, each have brought 1,173.62 points. The addition of San Marino, Andorra or Malta would have reduced this average by 159.72. The truth is that theirs would have been the best group of all, had they only played better.
This is the part that jumped out the most to me. Yannick Noah, really? That's like a poll of the best British sportsmen coming out with Bobby Moore and Greg Rusedski.Quote:
The funny thing is that, in France, outside the football world, he still has a positive image, judging by polls and studies for the most popular sportsman. But very often they are people who are not interested in sports, so they will name Yannick Noah and Zidane – Noah played his last game over 15-20 years ago and Zizou has been retired for a while now, as a player.
The Robbie thing is bizarre as well. Wenger said the same the day afterwards, although he's obviously linked to Henry in other ways. The Georgia result didn't affect the final standings in any way and we arguably were bound to win that game either way. I'm still not convinced Andrews' strike should have been chalked off.
I don't think the doc will be too happy with Auclair's comments either.