Goal! Hand! Whistle! Cheat! Thief! Scandal! Robbery! Disgusting! Replay! Fair play! Legacy! Embarrassed! Mortified! Ashamed! Tainted! Over?
Yes, it's over. The cliché-ridden aftermath has been inevitable but necessary. It has been a bitter blow. The reaction has been a mixture of anger and anxiety - played out like a scene from a school-yard kick-a-bout. Henry's blatant handling of the ball at the far stick was comical, as was Martin Hanssen's (and his linesman's) inability to see it. Shay Given raced to the ref, furiously thumping his arm, valiantly attempting to persuade Hanssen to discount the goal. The rest of the Irish players followed, wildly gesturing with their hands. But the decision had been made. Henry had got away with it. And just like in school, Ireland couldn't answer back. They knew they'd been wronged. This had been an injustice. They'd seen it with their own eyes. But this was it. The game was over and it wasn't fair. Tears followed, eyes furrowed into the lights of the Parisian night. There was nowhere to go. Except to the mixed zone and to go public with the anger and anxiety. Lots of words, lots of bytes. But just a moral victory. Just.
There have been calls for the game to be replayed. Calls for the French Football Federation to 'do the right thing'. Lots of words. This won't happen but it makes us feel better, doesn't it? It makes us feel better that the whole world is on our side, that we're right to feel the way we do. It helps with the anxiety - that situation whereby we have so much to say and too little time. It's like being present at a funeral of a dear friend - 'It's okay, we know what you're going through. It's all going to be alright'. It reassures us. We are the good guys. We are the 'real' winners.
But, what is winning? Is it succeeding at any cost, a ruthless victory? Experts and analysts everywhere constantly talk about the great teams doing what it takes to win. Going that extra inch. Thierry Henry went that extra inch. Yes, it was an illegal act and a damning indictment of the current status of professional sport. But, he got away with it. In the same situation, would the FAI agree to a replay? No. Why would they? The mistake wasn't Henry's. Retrospectively perhaps, he feels he made a mistake because of what's followed. But not in the moment. In the moment, he instinctively used his hand to set up a goal for a team-mate. And they won the game. In similar situations, it's said that players should put pressure on referees to make decisions on the spot - particularly in relation to penalty kicks. On Wednesday night, Henry put pressure on the officials to make a call. And they got it wrong - the mistake was simple human error. And at least two of the match officials must take responsibility for that. There should be FIFA sanctioning and an apology should be given to the Irish team, management and to the country at large. The governing body have kept sheepishly and unashamedly quiet since the incident and this behaviour is both outrageous and unacceptable.
Sport, like everything else, is a reflection of society so should people be so surprised that cheating, robbing, lying, etc exist in a sporting environment? This has long since been a Darwinist world where we do anything to get ahead. Politics, justice, health, arts, entertainment, you name - when you reach the top, you've normally left many dead bodies in your wake. What if an Irish player 'cheated' to score the winning goal last Wednesday night? Would we be bowing our heads in mass embarrassment, as the French would like to have us believe they're doing? I think many Irish supporters would like to think they'd take the moral high-ground. Honestly, I think we'd behave exactly as our continental counter-parts - mortified, but relieved and thankful we're heading to the World Cup. Is that immoral? No. It's just natural.
