Ireland Got Robbed.

As many of you may know, as it has been unsurprisingly huge news, Ireland got robbed of a possible spot in the World Cup yesterday. The playoff was tied on aggregate 1-1 and the second leg was in extra time in France. Fiorent Malouda plays a ball to a clearly offside Thierry Henry in the 104th minute. Henry, in an attempt to keep the ball in play on the end line, deflects it from his hand onto his foot to the head of William Gallas who sheepishly put it into the net for the goal that undeservedly sent France to the World Cup.
For all of yesterday I was absolutey furious about this. I have never been a big Thierry Henry fan since his days with Arsenal and I am more or less indifferent towards the French national team. On top of that I am half Irish so of course I want to see them get to a World Cup as they have only made three in their history, last in 2002. Still, I have had a day to cool down and now I can think about this logically.
First, we can look at the play itself. It is a common occurrence for a player to be offsides and Henry should rightfully play on if it is not called. In fact, there is a chance (a very small chance) that Henry knew he was off and handled it because he figured it would get called back anyways. In either case, Henry claims it was "accidental" and "instinctual" for him to handle it and keep it in play. If we give Henry the benefit of the doubt on this, it's fine for him to have done what he did. Ultimately it falls on the referees and linesmen to get the call right, and they simply did not. Some people foolishly have suggested Gallas should not have put the ball in the goal. Gallas looked sheepish as he did it and was probably thinking like the rest of the world, thinking that Henry's handball would get called and there'd be no goal. Gallas cannot be faulted for putting the ball into the net. All in all, it is hard to put blame on France for the travesty. 99% of the time it would get called back and there would be no argument on their part about it.
So, the blame lands squarely on the shoulders of the referee and linesman. Swedish referee Martin Hansson confidently told the Irish as he walked off the pitch, "There was no handball." My response to this is that he's an idiot. The play was not a hard one to follow and there seemed to be no obvious blockage of the official by other players. Blame is placed on his linesman as well, who should be virtually on the end line and have a perfect view of the play. When it comes down to it, UEFA President Michel Platini will point to this as the perfect reason as to why there should be officials behind each goal, and frankly, he has a point now. However, you will never see him place any blame on the officials in this instance.
Platini is a Frenchman and FIFA President Sepp Blatter has already been criticized for protecting the big nations in this World Cup Qualifying. The puzzling decision was made late in qualifying to seed the 8 teams that would participate in the UEFA playoff. This meant that big guns such as Portugal and France did not meet up, which would have deprived the World Cup of considerable star power. It would be outrageous to suggest that there is some kind of conspiracy theory behind the World Cup, but it would be equally outrageous to suggest that this game should be forced into a replay. There is an incredibly remote possibility that it happens, as a Bahrain-Uzbekistan World Cup playoff was replayed back in 2005, but no doubt France would have to agree to the replay, which is a long shot. Even so, it is a replay that would likely be opposed by both Platini and Blatter for a multitude of reasons.
Hopefully from this dark day in football can come some light. Whether it be Platini's extra officials goalside, or some kind of review system that somehow does not slow down play, changes must be made. We see replay all over American sports and it is time for Europe and the rest of the world to utilize this technology. My best suggestion for replay is to have an extra official in a booth that reviews the game as it happens. On clear-cut cases such as handballs, goals, maybe offsides, etc., that a referee misses (and that leads directly to a goal), the play will be reviewed in the booth and if it is found that it was a missed call, the official can buzz the referee who can stop play and return it back to the goalie for a goal kick. It is hard to imagine this happening in international football, but it would be a much better result than what happened in France yesterday.