"Je suis desole, Messieur Dicky Dunne…"
Dear Mr. Williams,
look, we know you’re running against deadline for your latest op-ed, but perhaps you could have produced something a little less, well, unrealistic?
To refresh: your thesis is that in admitting to a handball (we’re still unsure as to Thierry’s timing here) yet not denying the goal that the unsighted referee awarded, Messieur Henry has condemned himself to a lifetime of “cheater” tags and succumbed to the sinister arts of the tarnished sports figure.
I’m sorry, but would you care to point out to me a single player that would have done differently? Would Rooney have admitted to such a thing? Or Landon Donovan? Or Beckham? Or David Villa? You can cross into other sports if you’d like.
I note that you do give us 3 examples, all of them far less charged than the situation that unfolded in Paris last night. Robbie Fowler in 1997. Paolo di Canio in 2000. Some Romanian guy in a Romanian league game last March. In response, I’ll give you a couple that happened in situations much more attuned to the Ireland/France play-off. Diego Maradona, 1986. Torsten Frings, 2002.
When this is all done and dusted, we can look at both sides – Henry’s immediate reaction to his handling and your limp op-ed – as being kindred brethren in the “coulda shoulda” game. After all, they’re both missing the referee/officiating in their decision-making, although I do appreciate how you close by saying Maradona’s handball was different somehow, because it was a “street kid’s instinct” as opposed to Henry’s apparently elevated thought process. It exposes that as an Englishman, you’re still hung up on that prime example of cheating and are perhaps afraid to leap to that conclusion with Henry just yet. In that situation, I feel like we’d all have done the same, because those flashes of glory are brief and none of us are immune to making bad choices. The new Argentine golden child, Lionel Messi, did the same in a Barca-Espanyol derby last year… is his situation different again?
Still, it doesn’t stop you from asserting that Henry’s choice has doomed “the children” to a lifetime of emulating his insincere skulduggery. That’s the stuff memorable op-eds are made of!
Nice work, Mr. Williams. Let us know what the view is like from up on high. As usual, Rob Smyth finds himself much closer to the mark.
- James T.
Wow. I really didn’t think a “WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!” piece would come out of this. Holy crap. I seriously blame Mitch Albom for 100% of the handwringing BS that passes for much of sportswriting today.
No Englishman would do such and thing and I’d like to think the same of an American.
Who the f**k, in the middle of a heated athletic contest, thinks about the long-term consequences of their often instinctive actions?
Also, is there anyone among us who has suffered long-lasting negative effects from the actions of a celebrity/athlete (assuming, of course, that nobody here had any dealings with someone like Michael Jackson as a child)? I’ve been permanently scarred by The Drive and The Fumble, but I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.
I’m still traumatized from seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple.
(The link is to a different article)
Wow. Lumping Titi in with Barton and Savage? That’s a bridge too far, Rob.
Fixed. Georger… the Guardian loves to switch in and out with their URLs sometimes.
@Goat – I had a priapism from the David Tyree catch.
He caught it with his head!!! how does that ever happen!?!
@NYK: Excuse me while I go spoon my eyeballs out.
Also Keith, note that the Smyth article is from 2007. Still, it rings true. Thierry, as elegant as he carries himself, is no more immune to petulance than any other player who’s erred during the course of play.
@Goat, I think we can assume that he knew it was wrong and what he had done. And then decided to smile smugly as he ran to celebrate.
If you’re gonna blame Mitch Albom, you’ve gotta throw Rick Reilly in there too.
Reilly and Telander, sure.
It’s that needlessly saccharine angle that everyone is avoiding, yet the schmaltzy few cannot resist. I’d defy Mr. Williams to point out any player of this unimpeachable moral fiber he possesses who would not fall into that same trap.
If anything, and I hate to be simplistic, but he’s an Englishman railing on the French. He has several op-eds that are extremely critical of the French, and some involving the Argies too.
Agreed, JT. The shame is, as some mentioned earlier, that the focus of this match is firmly trained on Keane’s miss and Henry’s handball, and not on the officiating (which was terrible throughout the match) and the entirely shady behavior of FIFA throughout this wholly s**tty episode.
So Henry gets painted as the villain, Keane the fading former hero, and FIFA and UEFA waltz away as if they played no part in this farce.
Right on, Phil. We’re too busy admonishing the player for trying to help his team win the game, albeit very illegally, instead of the coterie of idiots that a. staffed the game and b. preside over it.
I don’t disagree with that conceit, JT, but there’s normal footballing petulance, and there’s Joey Barton. That’s all I’m saying.
Yeah, no one deserves to be associated with Joey Barton. He is is on special sort of f**kwit.