Now after 4 days of reading all the bullshit in the media regarding if Henry is a cheat or not, if Ireland vs. France should be replayed or not, I have to say – the whole discussion is nonsense.

23 years ago, as young kid cheering for England I was in shock looking at how Maradona scored the infamous “God’s hand” goal. It took me quite some time to realize and comprehend why he did it and why he hasn’t confessed he scored with a hand.

Soccer players are humans. Mare humans. And humans cheat. For whatever reasons. It is not nice. It is not good. But humans cheat. As logic tells you, being humans, the soccer players cheat too. And in a matter of fact they have much better reasons to do so. Missing a World Cup? Not if you control a ball with your hand and pass for an open play goal.

Great players are actually more likely to cheat than ordinary players. Look at this fact – you are becoming a great not because you have a great talent. But because you have the extra edge will to win. The extra edge to win no matter what. It is the same in all areas of human life – the best will reach the top because they have the extra edge.

Look around. Look into the history books. Tell me – how many of the greatest people that lived and walked the face of the earth were also decent human beings. Not too many, I can assure you.

So doing what Henry did on Wednesday, doesn’t make him a cheat. Doesn’t make him less of footballer. It makes him one of the gray many human beings that are not great at heart. And this is not that much of a fault. It is extremely hard to have THAT edge.

Just to put the things into soccer perspective. Do you remember 1986? Do you remember what sort of terror Maradona was put against? How much he suffered out of the the kicks of his opponents. Not many of them were properly judged by the referees. Do you remember 2001? When Henry twice was denied by a goal line HAND clearance of Stéphane Henchoz and eventually because of that Liverpool won the FA cup in this glorious for us season. I don’t remember any of us, the Liverpool fans, complaining from that. And does anyone remember how Republic of Ireland, yes the very same Republic of Ireland won against Georgia? With a controversial penalty that merely existed? I don’t remember any of them asking for reply back then 🙂

That’s part of the game. Period. The REAL problem is at a different place.

It is FIFA and UEFA.

We live in a time when soccer is being played at extreme pace. It is expected that referees will do mistakes. They do them all the time. It is normal. Gee – 4 weeks ago, 4 referees at the Stadium of Light didn’t know that the goal Sunderland scored should have been disallowed. Everyone thought that the penalty against Ngog last game for Liverpool was stonewall, until we saw the replays.

Referees are also humans. They can’t see it all. And it is time to use video replays. As simple as that.

It will not happen soon though 🙂 Not until Blatter and Platini are in charge.

But this is the real solution. Not replaying a game that already ended. And branding one of the great footballers of our time “a cheat”. He is just a human. Di Canios and Fowlers in this world are not that much 🙂

Viewed 14456 times by 4430 viewers