What is your position about the recent soccer match between France and Ireland and the outcome?

I don’t really care for football and I don’t know the details of the football match, but if that play had any direct effect on the outcome then I think there should be a rematch.

The thing with sports is that somebody has to make the ultimate call. The refs on the field have that responsibility. If you go around constantly second guessing them, they can’t do their job. You can complain about it with your mates (which some might say is half the fun of sports) but ultimately you have to accept the ruling on the field, because the rules say that just as much as they say you can’t touch the ball. So until soccer implements some kind of instant replay procedure, the call on the field stands, end of story.

Good answer @snarp
Football needs to make video playback available to referees at least on international or cup final fixtures.

For other injustices check the “hand of god” Argentina England match from Mexico 86. Shocking!

I think there has been a lot more fuss about this match than there was back in 1986, even though this is just a qualifier and that was the semi-final if my memory serves me well (or was it even the final?). I think a lot of it has to do with the media, plus the way the two players reacted in each case. Maradona, at the peak of his career, claimed it was not his hand, but “the Hand of God” who scored the goal, an absurd claim that got many laughs and a lot of ridicule, but at the same time simply added to his myth of an extravagant and arrogant star. Henri’s reaction was seen as provocative (and has been added to his image during his Arsenal years).

I don’t think there should be a rematch, because then we’ll simply have to play every single game in the history of football all over again. Sports often have these incidents, and it’s not always the best team that wins, which is in a way the whole fun of it. If everything was fair, we wouldn’t even need to play: we’d just compare the two roasters and the best team would win on paper. It’s exactly the human error, flukes and mere lucky breaks, the sudden gust of wind and the chicken that entered the pitch that make this game fun. And frustrate the Irish in this case.

But yes, both UEFA and FIFA need to improve their level of refereeing (often making mistakes that cannot easily be seen as “accidental”). The technology is there, and it’s cheap and easy to use: for example, most of the complaints are over the off-side rule, and 22 transmitters with laser beams at the 4 corner flags would cost just a couple of thousand per stadium. Similarly, I find it odd that I can have an informed opinion, real-time, about whether a goal was valid when I’m sitting in my living room thousands of miles away (with the benefit of replay), but the decision lies with a guy who never saw what happened, has to make up his mind right now, and is not allowed to ask anyone.

France should appeal to FIFA and ask them to repeat the match.

See http://www.fluther.com/disc/61926/should-fifa-suspend-thierry-henry-and-force-france-to-a-re-match/ ;-)

So no, I don’t think there should be a rematch but measures have to be taken to allow for more just “ultimate calls” in the future. And yeah, in *foot*ball it’s not allowed to touch the ball with your hands unless you’re the keeper or performing an in-throw.

You cannot handle the ball in soccer. Henry clearly did but the referee never seen it. If he did he would have not allowed the goal. It is disappointing.

Basically the game should have been replayed because France gained an unfair advantage on a “non-call” that later was realized that a mistake was made.