No luck for the Irish

So the last team from the group belonging to the so called’ big nations’ has made it through albeit with a helping hand. France stumbled across the finish line after beating, an at best, mediocre Irish team 2-1 after extra time thanks to Thierry Henry’s blatant cheating to gift William Gallas an easy tap in for the winner after the Irish gave them a minor scare by taking the lead. While Les Bleus deserve to revel in their success of making it to South Africa 2010, manager, Raymond Domenech has some deep thinking to do ahead of the World cup finals next year if he is actually serious about building upon their solitary win in this competition in 1998. France has struggled throughout this qualifying campaign and it was no different tonight against Ireland with Thierry Henrys arm being the difference between the two sides in the Stade De France. After being placed in a group containing the likes of the Faroe Islands, Austria and Lithuania – all teams ranked outside the top fifty according to Fifa’s ranking system – it was expected the path to South Africa, for the French, would be a smooth ride instead of a bumpy short cut across the plains of Africa. The main competition for them in the group was predicted to be either Serbia or Romania, ranked according to Fifa 20th and 36th, respectively. Serbia stunned everyone by winning the group ahead of France leaving Raymond Domenech slightly embarrassed as well as hated in the country and fighting to keep his job despite the proverbial backing from the powers that be at the French FA. By winning tonight Domenech has ensured the safe keep of his job until next year for sure but will he really mastermind a good tournament for France so that he will keep his job beyond. History suggests he could. Domenech had a poor qualifying campaign prior to the 2006 World cup just about making it to the tournament with the help of the golden generation of Zidane, Makekele and Thuram. With that in mind he led the 1998 world champions to the final of that tournament only losing out on penalties to a solid Italian team. Monsieur Domenech would be the luckiest coach in my era to steer his team to a second successive final but the possibility can never be ruled out. After all, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought ‘there’s no way back into this match for Liverpool’ in Istanbul 2005. Domenech will sleep easier tonight safe in the knowledge that he will be in South Africa and with better talent at his disposal in the form of Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema and hopefully a fit Thierry Henry minus the deception. This qualifying campaign has certainly shown France’s deficiencies but with fears allayed about their world cup dreams, maybe the squad will grow from this experience stronger and readier than ever and ready to show that they will be the kings of the jungle and the world in South Africa.