Paris, France (GenevaLunch) - Thierry Henry handed France their ticket to the 2010 World Cup, literally, as he controlled the ball with his hand before passing it to William Gallas to score the equalizing goal against Ireland in their play-off match. Somehow the referee and linesman failed to see the fault, which was clearly deliberate. Ireland dominated the match in the first half and took the lead with a goal by Robbie Keane and could have easily gone further ahead before they were hit by the French version of the “hand of God.”
In the other games Algeria qualified at the expense of Egypt, Greece beat Ukraine and Portugal won both games against Bosnia-Herzegovenia. The surprise of the evening was Russia being eliminated by Slovenia.
Links to other sites: Fifa, Guardian, Irish Times
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 19 November 2009.
Filed under: Sports
Tags: fault, football, France, hand of God, Ireland, Robbie Keane, Thierry Henry