The past week here in France was a big one, as the national football team (soccer to us Americans) faced Ireland in two matches that would determine who gets to go to the big show, and who stays home.
This is interesting because France, generally considered a powerhouse on the national stage and a regular shoe-in for the World Cup Finals, has been lackluster to put it mildly. For them to come down to the wire against a scrappy upstart like Ireland speaks volumes. I don’t profess to know even a tenth of the whole story or to understand the sport as just about everyone else in the world but Americans do, but let’s just say there has been a lot of well-published tension within the team that has made this a trying qualifying season for them.
Needless to say, the first match was Saturday the 14th. Erika and I went to watch the game at an Irish pub with one of her lab mates. The match was unusually dull with France pulling a win out of the hat 1 – 0. The more interesting thing is that I have finally gone into one Europe’s famous “Irish Theme” pubs. Yes, the drinks were typically whiskeys, beers, and ales from the Green Isle, but that’s where the Irishness stopped. The Rambler (sounds Irish, don’t it?) was staffed by French-speaking bartenders and the majority of the crowd were there in support of Les Bleus.
The real action was last night, Wednesday the 18th. At about 8:30pm local time cars outside started honking and cheers of joy reverberated through the streets. Either this was a pre-celebration or something else happened. Peeking out our window, our street was clogged with traffic as, about a block down, hundreds of people were lighting off flares and fireworks. It turns out it was the local Algerian contingent celebrating their country’s own do-or-die moment against Egypt, thus qualifying for the World Cup Finals at the last chance. Yaaay!!! Our first football victory street celebration!!!
The revelers made their way down our street towards the center of town, blocking the oncoming traffic (which is no mean feat as we live on quite a busy road). Erika and I grew concerned that if the second France vs. Ireland match, which started at 9pm that same night, ended in a victory, we would have to go through this again. Sure enough, around 11:30pm I did hear some honking but not that raucous celebration I was expecting with a French win. When I had last checked before going to bed Ireland was up by 1 – 0, so I assumed that the honking might have been celebration by Lyon’s small, but dedicated Irish community.
It turns out I was wrong. France tied up the game in extra time, thus giving them a higher aggregate score and qualifying them for the Finals. The problem is that the scoring drive was assisted with an obvious handball by French superstar Thierry Henry and, since none of the referees actually saw it happen, the score had to stand (there is no video replay rule for officiating, yet within seconds of the video of the dastardly crime was playing on the giant screens in the stadium for all to see).
And so now I am living in the country that will have gotten into the World Cup Finals on an obvious violation. Even if France goes all the way and takes the tournament, that one violation will hover over them always.
Go Les Bleus!!!
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