The Emphatic Return of King Henry

Not much time for a proper post today, so I'll keep it short.

Thierry Henry! It's been said elsewhere, but it's like it was scripted. Arsenal needed someone to lift them, to score the deciding goal against their old nemesis, Leeds, and, of course, Henry climbs off the bench, and scores one of his trademarks. Left channel, beautiful control, curls it around the keeper into the far post. As Arsene Wenger said, it was a very Henry angle.

If you haven't seen what I'm ranting and raving about, click here.

In case you haven't heard, this man was the reason I started following the Gunners all those years ago. To me, in his prime, he epitomised so many things that were beautiful about the game. Pace, skill, power, timing, teamwork, athleticism, goals. Ripping through teams as if they were paper, and he was some kind of paper...ripper. All done with seemingly very little effort. He's also a throwback to a team that was as good as good can be. I'd say that team would give the modern day Barcelona a run for their money. Ljungberg, Vieira, Pires, Campbell.

To see him return, and score the decisive goal in his first game back, is beyond unbelievable.

Trademark.

Although his facial hair is questionable, there was no doubt about the elation he felt at the goal. All in all, pure, undistilled, sheer awesome today. 

Also, started work yesterday. Been learning quite a bit, settling in, and all that. Still finding my feet a bit, but starting to feel a lot more comfortable. More about that anon I guess.

Word of the Day: Henry

Ire Land

I wish Ireland would just get over it.

Asking for a replay of the match was sort of fair, in the sense that they were knocked out because of a referee mistake.

But asking to go to the World Cup as a 33rd team is just ludicrous. There was absolutely no guarantee that they would've gone through anyway. It's not like the spot was stolen away from them. It was a draw at the time. Either team could have gone on to win it, if not for the handball.

I'll put it another, more general way.

Every team that gets knocked out could potentially go, "Oh, they committed an infringement in the process of scoring a goal, so could you please add me in, even though I wasn't going through in the first place?"

Yeah, Sepp Blatter is incompetent and has no sense of how to handle things, but Ireland shouldn't have asked to be included in the first place.

Word of the Day: Ireland

Of Stevie Wonder and Henry

This story, for want of a better word, began on Friday after lunch.

So like, me and Linda were in David Jones, having been ditched by some unscrupulous people. Stevie Wonder came on, and we were bopping. Lo and behold, it was my ringtone. As if not recognise your own ringtone, Andrew.

To be fair, I'd only set it to my ringtone the day before. It was originally on 'See you in my Nightmares' by Kanye, but I decided that was too quiet.

It's now back to my favourite ringtone, 'Don't Go Away' by Oasis. It's very loud and distinctive, and I love the shredding of the guitar at the start. The potential for embarrassing, albeit classic moments, is reduced now. Don't know if that's really a good thing. It's a trade-off really.

So when I got home from the chill session at DJs, I visited one of my top 5 favourite websites, ESPN Soccernet, to see that the Henry storm was still in full force.

Please, people. If you're going to make such a big fuss about this, asking for replays and such, millions of matches would be replayed every season. A few off the top of my head to follow. First up, the one that touches a sore point with most Aussies: Fabio Grosso and his ridiculous dive in THAT match against Australia. Liverpool vs Birmangham a couple of weeks back, David N'gog and his comical dive.

I'm not supporting this type of behaviour. But shouldn't the ref have some responsibility, if not most of it? I mean, he missed a double handball from a player in an offside position. Surely one of the three refs should have seen one of those infringements. I don't see why Henry should take all the blame.

Of course all the Irish players are saying that they wouldn't have done the same in the same situation. That's because they were never in that type of position to do so. It's easy to say in retrospect, but I'm sure it seemed far more appealing to Henry to seal the deal in open play than to face the lottery of spot kicks. We'd all like to think that we wouldn't have done that, but if you think about it, you take a gamble, one kick, and your team is through to the biggest tournament on Earth. It's a hard offer to turn down, especially given the pressure on the team and the money involved in football today.

By extension, Henry's even taking one for the team, copping all this flack but helping his team through.

Yes, I love Henry. He was the reason that I started following Arsenal all those years ago. My opinion remains objective. My objectivity is apparent if anyone would have cared to listen to my rants. They would've heard me tell them that, although I felt the height of anger immediately after the Grosso dive, a few days later I came to be disappointed in the Socceroos for two reasons. Reason number 1: Italy are a man down. We let a fullback, playing in a highly defensive formation, get up into our penalty area in virtually the last minute of the game. What's more, the Socceroos can't even score a goal against them. Reason number 2: Lucas Neill and his flying tackle. Sure, he got the ball. But was it really necessary to go sliding in like that?

Cheating happens in football. The only way to stomp it out is with video replays, but FIFA seems so intent on letting match fixers have an easier time that this does not look like eventuating any time soon. In the mean time, the ref must bear most, if not all of the responsibility for failing to call up such a blatant foul.

Word of the Day: Henry