Comments on: And now it’s time to talk about what happened

By: Andrei

Andrei — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00:36 +0000

You said it yourself: “Ireland were not in a winning position, just a position to get to penalties”. The goal wasn’t the only reason Ireland got knocked out. It just denied them the chance to win it in the penalty shootouts. Otherwise, Ireland had to score the second goal. And if they did they would be in the World Cup cheating or no cheating.

By: thefuseproject

thefuseproject — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:01:45 +0000

He’s just a joker looking to get hits for his website.

Oh, and for the record, football players (the kind that uses a prolate spheriod) wear “cleats.”

By: Two Yellows

Two Yellows — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:07:25 +0000

You can’t understand the outrage? Really?

First off, it’s 30 MILLION EUROS just gone from the Irish FA’s coffers. That’s what World Cup teams make just for showing up. Secondly, there’s a HUGE amount of prestige involved with making the World Cup finals, especially what would have been involved with knocking off the 2002 champs and 2006 runners-up. Third, for a LOT of the Irish players, this was their best EVER shot at making the World Cup. A chance that comes around once every four years.

Don’t minimize the outrage. Please don’t, it makes you look foolish.

By: Tony G. Dagger

Tony G. Dagger — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:59:14 +0000

It’s not cheating. Something that happens in the course of the game that’s illegal isn’t necessarily cheating. Cheating is taking amphetamines before the game or wearing illegal cleats. Should it have been a hand ball? Yes. But this kind of stuff happens and I can’t understand the outrage, this ain’t the first bad call in history.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:11:48 +0000

“Replay would have disallowed this goal.”

100% agreed. I think this is the type of thing that will make replay get considered. You only have to do it for controversial goals, it’d take maybe a minute of time and it’d probably only happen once every 3-4 matches or so.

The bottom line is that the officials missed the call. I saw one replay where the line judge had what should have been a clear cut line of sight and seen that the ball hit Henry’s hand.

Like I had said yesterday, if I’m in the same position as Henry with a place in the World Cup on the line and I know I’m not going to be able to wrangle that ball down to get a clear shot or pass then I’m palming the ball and trying to get something out of it. 9 times out of 10 that’s probably caught and the goal disallowed.

By: Sculptor?!?

Sculptor?!? — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:00:11 +0000

Re: Free pass. Nice idea, and let’s up the ante (since we’re discussing pipe dreams that will never happen): Regardless of their respective records leading into 2014, Ireland gets a free pass, and France is denied entry.

\grumble grumble…insert anti-French epithet of choice here

By: thefuseproject

thefuseproject — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:48:00 +0000

FIFA will never allow this match to be replayed. End of story.

However, if Ireland had won in a similar fashion I’d already be looking to see when the rematch was going to be televised.

FIFA will just ride it out until the excitement of the draw pushes the story out of people’s minds.

It will never happen, but here’s a novel idea: how about Ireland get’s a free pass to Brazil 2014?