Ireland's playoff woes, part IV

It's not over until the fat lady sings but she’ll be eyeing a concert in Paris on Wednesday after a disappointing performance by the Irish against France in Dublin. In a generally poor game, the French deserved at least the one-goal margin of victory that they achieved, albeit that the goal they did score came from a fairly tame shot which without the deflection from St Ledger was unlikely to trouble Shay Given.

Giovanni Trapattoni stuck to the methods that kept Ireland unbeaten in qualifying, picking a team and formation designed to stop the opposition and hope to pick something up on the break. The formula has worked against Italy and Bulgaria but France were a little too good and deserved their victory. On the evidence of this game, Ireland are not good enough to beat France and a look at the substitutes bench suggests that there is little that Ireland can do in Paris to change the course of the fixture.

There is always hope, however, so here are this Irishman's plans A, B & C...

PLAN A:-
The Carlsberg/McAteer solution:-
As I understand it we fill Jason McAteer with Carlsberg and Ireland will win the World Cup so a simple away win in Paris must be a cinch.

PLAN B:-
A quick look through the French team gives you the inkling that maybe, just maybe, there is a self-destruct button waiting to be pressed. Abidal's injury means that William Gallas will take on even more responsibility at the centre of the defence, whilst Diarra and Anelka both have plenty of form in the sulking department. The infamously fickle Paris crowd can also play their part in contriving to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

PLAN C:-
Alternatively we could get a Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah to work some magic and get the goal in Dublin retrospectively disallowed - he had the power.

Your correspondent will be watching the game from his local but look out for some mid-game comments on this page if all is going well or a conspicuous absence of comments if we need to move on to Plan D.

Comments

[worldinmotion]

As many French fans were admitting tonight, that was an embarrassment for Les Bleus. Henry should apologise and the game should be replayed. It would be a hugely significant gesture for the game of football. The most engrossing match played for some time and a remarkable travesty of justice.

[ceann mor]

No doubt the hysteria will start here ireland were denied the opportunity to play at the world cup by the slight of hand
Of a certain terry Henry but at the end of the day it was a game of 4 halves and France did enough by fair means or foul to
Get to south Africa and had the boot been on the other foot I would have enjoyed the victory whilst soaring
A thought for the unlucky losers
I will now switch allegiance to Algeria who against the odds best the Egyptians in khartoum tonight
I blame carlsberg and Jason Mc - Henry did what he had to and the referee for me had a really good game apart from that incident

[ceann mor]

Its been coming 2-1 France
Henry handles the ball twice in the build up but ireland have 15 minutes to score a winner

[ceann mor]

Ireland should through but they're not ....yet
Extra time in Paris but in balham the pub thinks the game is over and so the music is on and the telly is off
Cue Irish voices joined in consternation

[Name]

Too early?
Robbie Keane scores and Guinness goes everywhere
Ireland deserve the lead after a solid 10 minutes of sustained pressure

[cm]

12 minutes gone zero chances but already one frenchman has given up

[ceann mor]

Here beginneth an experimental live text commentary on QoS

First the bad news - no carlsberg in the pub and no sign of Jason mc either
Guinness seems to be the order of the day in balham

Looks like there's a massive travelling support in Paris tricolores everywhere though it looks like a few of them have mixed up blue and red with green and cold
Allez la vert

[dupin]

What has happened to Duff?