Sport | Football
Henry has his hand in France's victory
My own mind goes back to the World Cup finals of 2006: France against Germany in a closely fought affair
- By Brian Glanville, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:00 December 1, 2009
The tumult of the Thierry Henry episode is largely dying down. In the first place there has been a tendency to regard Henry as an exemplary figure, hard to associate with an incident such as that in Paris. Not quite so.
My own mind goes back to the World Cup finals of 2006: France against Germany in a closely fought affair. Challenged on the right by the tough Spanish centre back Pujol, Henry clasped his hand to his face and fell over, gaining a wholly illicit free kick. He hadn't been touched. But from that free kick, France scored a wholly vital goal and won.
As a bright youngster playing for Monaco, Henry and his fellow star in attack David Trezeguet, fell out with their manager who then was Jean Tigana, a distinguished French midfield international in his day. They behaved abominably, pretending to read the paper when he was trying to give a team talk.
In soccer parlance, they were playing to get away, and so they did, to the fury of the club president. Henry joined Juventus in Turin but things did not work out. He was still more unhappy there as he didn't win a regular place and in a short time was bought for Arsenal by his previous mentor at Monaco, Arsene Wenger who as we know converted him with huge success into a marvellous centre forward.
I have no special wish to impugn Henry who should never have done what he did in Paris. Meet him and you find a humorous, charming, modest man. But this was not the only example of his profiting from a handball, and he was with all his skills hardly been a shining example.
And it has been pointed out that Ireland's skipper Robbie Keane did handle several times in the same match but not once did he get away with it. The Swedish referee himself has made costly errors in the past but I am ready to be convinced that neither he nor his linesman saw what Henry did — goodness knows it was hard enough on the television replays. Nor can we know what would finally have happened were Henry's goal disallowed. The game might still not finally have gone the Irish way.
Without either Lionel Messi or Zlatan Ibrahomivic, Barcelona still cruised home at the Nou Camp against an ageing Inter, showing one the astonishing depth of Barca's resources. Pedro is the latest to break through at the Nou Camp and he took his chance in rampant fashion.
The writer is a soccer expert based in England.
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