The Aztexan

There's been lots of ink & pixels spilled about Thierry Henry's handball. Let me add to the clamor a little bit. I mean, why have a blog, if you can't spout off whenever you feel like it?

This Twohundredpercent piece, Trying To Dissect The Thierry Henry Handball, sums up the rational, measured response. His main point, repeated several times, boils down to: "to expect anything but win-at-all-costs behavior from a pro footballer is foolish". He dismissively summarizes it here:

So, there we go. Thierry Henry handled the ball and that decision may or may not have knocked Ireland out of the World Cup. He could have come clean but, hey, he’s a footballer. What he did is what they do if it gives them a chance of a result and it’s what they’ve been doing for years – for decades even beyond Diego Maradona. He could have apologised. He could even have refused to celebrate the goal, but the fact that he did neither is hardly a surprise, except to those in the media that had placed him upon a pedestal some years ago."

Fine, it's not a surprise. But you know what? It still sucks.

Forget pedestals for individual players. I don't care if it's "the aesthete’s footballer", as Twohundredpercent dubs Henry, or a neanderthal thug like Kyle Beckerman.

How about this. Here's a guideline for you. How about: all mega-rich global superstars, who earn their astoundingly pampered living playing a game with a ball at their feet, have to at least play by the damned rules.

So while I may not expect the star striker of the French national team to admit that his crucial goal in a World Cup qualifier should be disallowed, I can still be mad that he didn't. I'm a fan; that's my right. I'm a part, however infinitesimal, of the ridiculous spectacle that is 21st-century pro soccer.

And I think cheaters suck.

Labels: deep thoughts