World cup soccer is tearing the world apart!

I LOVE TH14. Hes the reason I am now a huge fan of the Gunners...but that game was shameful because resulted in a World Cup berth. I know it was probably an instinctive reaction but it was still sad because the WC is a HUGE deal. I like Bobby McMahon from FSW's take on the situation.

http://community.foxsports.com/bobbymcmahon/blog/2009/11/19/the_thierry_henry_in...

Oh Henry, Leaving Arsenal was a dick move, now this? How am i supposed to respect you if you keep doing this shit especially if you may be interested in managing a team. But then again it could be worse, it could be the NFL with all those stupid rules and starting and stoping for beer and truck commercials that gives me the reason why i love real football. So don't fuck it up asshole.

FIFA needs to make time for a rematch. It'd actually be really good for them as there would be an incredible amount of attention on that game. They could make an incredible amount of money off of that game.

These kind of things always happen in soccer, so just get over it. Justice in soccer can only be applied by the ref and guess what he's human

handball, in plain sight. but it's Henry, so it doesn't even matter.

Theirry Henry is one of the greatest players in French football history. I guarantee this has happened in hundreds if not thousands of games before. As a matter of fact, the same exact thing happened to me during a game back in high school when the ball hit off my teammates hand and I scored off of it. It happens. If anyone is at fault it's the refs who weren't in proper position to make the call. The only reason everyone is making a big deal about this is because it was a World Cup playoff and there was a camera right there to capture it. Get over it. All is fair in love and war.. and football. It's not like he headbutt a guy in the chest or anything (I'm looking at you Zidane!).

Also, Ireland will never win the World Cup anyways. They've won two games in the entire history of the World Cup. Compare that to France who have won 25 total games and won it all in 1998 and made it to the final in 2006. France is a better team. Henry is an intelligent footballer.

I don't see why people are calling for his head and complain that soccer is uninteresting when baseball players use steroids everyone can just turn a blind eye to it because this is America and our homeruns! Boohoo!

P.S. Any post that talks about soccer and playoffs in the same breath is A-Okay with me! Go Pack! Go U.S.A. in 2010!

The Patriots steal entire game plans as they made their super bowl runs and one play, one moment has drawn this much attention from the nation of outrage (the US if you have not been breathing in the past 8 years) Politics trump common sense yet again. My France hating father is even on the bandwagon. "that terry hen-ree needs to be baned from soccer along with those dirty French."

Someone needs to read the piece Chuck Klosterman wrote about Soccer for his book "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs". On the reals.

Guys the issue between Egypt and Algeria is hardly about the game. Here is a good post from another website explain the POV from Egypt. I do not know how much is true but I know for a fact that this is what Egyptians believe to be true. I heard some crazy crazy stories from Sudan but all the publicity is going to the Egyptian fans stoning the Algerian team bus in Cairo. Once again truth and rumor are hard to distinguish in this situation but this is a pretty non-extreme account:

Sir,

Just to get the story correct. The Egyptian polpulation is not upset that the match was lost, the reason is that after the match, there were hundreds of Algerian hullagens waiting for the Egyptian fans outside the stadium on the way to the airport, the Egyptian fans were attacked with women, children, elderly men & women.

The Hullagens were Ex cons whom were transported by the Algerian airforce to Sudan, they were carrying knives and threatening the Egyptian fans in the streets to the extent the Egyptian fans were hiding the women and children in Sudanese peoples homes until things calm down.

In addition, the buses of the Egyptian fans were stoned with bricks, and had to stop due to human barriers (Algerian Hullegans) and surrounded to the extent the Egyptian fans paniced and children were crying and women screaming. Many Egyptian Fans wewre wounded and blood was ched.

The Sudanese authoroties arrestted over 10 Algerian Fans (as per the Sudanes Ambassador in Cairo press conferance on the 20th November) and they will be prosicuted. NO EGYPTIAN FANS were arrested.

The Egyptian population is requesting an appology from the Algerian government and they dont care about the match. The Egyptian population are requesting the government to discharge the Algerian Ambassador out of Egypt and dont mind cutting relations with Algeria.

I hope this clarifies the matter and there is 2 sides to every story.

— Ahmed Hamed

this type of play happens alot, its called the hand of god. victoire!

Things like this are the reason why I never have been, and will continue to not be interested in football. I'd like to be, and on occasion I get really involved, but then something ridiculous like this happens and it loses my trust.

I don't think that there should be a system of replaying the matches, but I do think that there is a serious need for an updated ref system - the ref is pretty much on his own out there, and on countless occasions I've seen people both on the sidelines and on TV spot an obvious foul within minutes of it occurring, so why then can't the ref be made to review footage and rethink his decision? (if he was even looking in the first place). It would be complicated, and a lot of rules would need to be set out in order for the system to not be taken advantage of, but for all the money and time that goes into the international industry of the game, you'd think some people could sit down and work something out.

The assist was a hand ball, not the actual score. But, that's just beside that point. Also, both Thierry Henri (the French team captain responsible for the hand ball) and the forward who headed the ball in for the goal were both offsides. So, two missed calls. Whoops.

Still, can't redo a game. If they did, it would cause all sorts of other teams (international and club teams) to start requesting that game be redone based on post-game footage analysis. Anyone else watch the Champions League semi-finals last year between Chelsea and Barcelona? Probably not. But in that game, on two different occasions Barcelona player had hand balls in their own goal territories in the final 15 minutes of the match and both times the referee did not call for a penalty kick. Barcelona scored and won the game. I kicked a hole in my wall.

Point is: It's happened before. It'll happen again. Sorry, Ireland. I love you, but you need to suck it up and start preparing to root against England winning the cup next year.

thats a handball alright! I though someone of his caliber would be an honest human being, i guess not. Mash down babylon kingdom now!

i play in a league on a mostly french team, our goal keeper is the only one who isn't french at all. He's Irish... oh boy...