Football
"Hand of God" strikes again
19 November 2009
Presseurop
L'Equipe 
L'Equipe, 19 November 2009
France have ignominiously wangled their way into the 2010 World Cup. L’Equipe headlines with “the hand of God”, but the photo of Thierry Henry’s handball, which eliminated Ireland, does not exactly smack of Gallic godliness on the pitch. Naturally, the “hand of God” argument once used by Argentina’s Maradona to justify a handball goal is nothing short of bad faith in the eyes of football fans. “Two hours of playing time led the Blues to the humbling conclusion that they are not a great team. Are they a team at all, for that matter?" the sports daily pretends to wonder the morning after the contentious decider in Paris. The Irish Independent, for its part, calls it “armed robbery”.
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