It's almost two weeks since the Ireland and France match. The night itself can only be described as the stuff nightmares are made of. Ireland sat glued to the television sets in all four corners of the country. I myself sat in the living room, attached to my laptop and blogging away goodo here. I'll admit I was confused at times, and I still need someone to explain the offside rule. But over all I really enjoyed watching the match even if I didn't enjoy the end result.
Not long after the match ended I went to bed to do some lesson planning. Not exactly the highlight but it had to be done. I wasn't there long when I noticed a very popular trend in the online worlds of facebook and twitter. Groups were being set up Henry bashing. Now I agree he was wrong and he knows better then to do the hand ball thing but at the end of the day he did it and got away with it. Given half the chance we would have done the same. I was sent links to various anti Henry sites and pages begging me to join them on twitter or the facebook craze lashing out at Thierry Henry or calling him a cheat (which he is) it goes on and on and on and on.....
It's two weeks later and people are still joining this pointless groups and going on and on and on about the Match. I do understand that it's a big deal. Because of Henry Ireland will not be going to the world cup next year and YES we are all heartbroken but this Hatred of Henry has GONE BEOND A JOKE!!
The rest of the world now sees the Irish as a bunch of sour grapes. And we do not need to be seen like that.
Outside of our little bubble of a island we are seen very differently to how we view ourselves. To look in the mirror we see ourselves as really welcoming and friendly, a lovely nice green country.
Let me assure you the only green thing about Ireland now is the green envy we embody these days. Hating Henry does very little to help our self image.
And as for the replay we spend so long talking about does anyone really believe we deseve it? In all fairness if we had played in anyway well in all the other matches we wouldn't be in this mess. In the group matches yes we did ok but as I stated in a post just hours before the first Ireland and France match, We could have done so much better against Italy. We threw it away. And in the first France match we didn't play half as well as we could have done. And we banked our whole world cup experience on one match in Paris. Yes we played well in that match but it takes more then one match to be good enough to get to the world cup.
So I have a question....
Did we throw away our World Cup chances because we were afraid of actually having to go to Africa and play on the biggest stadium in front of a massive world wide audience? What do you think?
Sunday, 29 November 2009
A case of Sour Grapes
Labels:
handball,
hellie,
Sour grapes,
thierry henry,
world cup 2010,
world cup qualifying
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There's two issues at stake here - firstly, the fan reaction to what happened. We're angry, and rightly so. It's rare that a referee has made a worse call and it's even rarer for a bad call to have such a cost. For Irish fans to be robbed of a World Cup dream hurt. A lot. That is what led to the hatred and vile you speak of. I think, though, that in the 11 days since we have calmed down (helped in part by the fact that the replay idea was shot down within days). What was said on the night and in the aftermath of the incident was, at times, too far, but we say things while angry and I think Irish fans have calmed down. Did it hurt how people view us internationally? I don't think so because in the UK/French/US press, Ireland were viewed as the victims and there were several prominent officials and journalists backing the idea of a replay.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, you ask if the team were afraid to go to the World Cup? No. Watch the first half of that match (second leg in Paris) and see the confidence and the attacking attitude with which Ireland played. They were a group of players, and a set of fans that desperately wanted to go to South Africa and to be deprived of that trip in such a horrid fashion is what hurt us all so much.
We are living in LA LA land, a dream land where angry fans seem to think it's ok to gripe and complain about losing a match. Not only that we had the nerve to go ahead today and BEG FIFA to allow us to be the 33rd World Cup Team in 2010. How seriously deluded are we? Why on earth would FIFA change the rules after 124 years to accomadate a tiny island like Ireland who realistically haven't a flying hope in hellin going anywhere in this competition. Lets face it we couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery never mind organise ourselves to go to the world cup......It's not like we really want to go anyway. If we really wanted to go our national team would have made a FAR bigger effort all along.
ReplyDeleteWe're nothing but a bunch or Spoiled brats throwing temper tantrums now about this world cup!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe shame of it
BY raising the issue of Henry's handball to FIFA, the FAI have directly affectd next year's World Cup which will now have two extra assistant referees to avoid a repeat of the incident in Paris. There is also more of a shift towards the introduction of video technology and a greater awareness of the sense of injustice felt by smaller teams such as Ireland. THAT was the goal of any complaints while requests for a replay or to be a 33rd team were aspirational but no more.
ReplyDeleteWe threw a hissy fit because FIFA laughed at us. Spoiled selfish brats. If you want a temper tantrum please come to Ireland, we're experts at them here.
ReplyDeleteWe should be ashamed of ourselves.
I am.
I would have been a lot more ashamed had the FAI taken the whole thing lying down and if they hadn't complained.
ReplyDeleteFIFA laughed at us when we wanted to be team 33 in the world cup so we threw a HISSY FIT.
ReplyDeleteI am not proud.
I am disgusted.