Henry is worthy of contempt. Boulahrouz is worthy of a criminal court trial.

But seriously, I think all available soccer contempt should be focussed in a laser-like beam at the near-crippler of Cristiano Ronaldo (Dutch guy – Boula-something-or-other). And I say that as an England fan who would welcome CR’s absence.

Jake, definitely less, if you mean other-outcome perverted. My guess, maybe 2, which is par for the (perverted) course.

I wasn’t talking about how Henry usually conducts himself. I was talking about this particular, contemptible, incident. What he “usually” does has little bearing on that. In fact, you might say he took advantage of whatever sporting reputation he might have in order to cheat and deceive so much the more effective. He is worthy of all musterable contempt.

#145, Henry’s usually fairly sporting. Save your contempt for more worthy recipients.

one of the things i like about football is that it allows for the possibility that OVERT AND CYNICAL VILLAINY —such as is being denounced all up and down this thread—gets its righteous defeat on the pitch (rather than warded off in advance by more rigorously robotic reffing); but for this to be reach operatic scale, it has to advance through a sequence of arguably disgraceful minor results, featuring the sacrifice of well-meaning but not up-to-it unlikely rough-diamond champions of idealistic virtue

I thought the free-kick was legit, but Henry then childishly, disgracefully, feigned having been hit in the face. He deserved a booking for that performance, at least. And he deserves the general contempt of the footballing world.

At that point i was about to say it’s a rather silly thing to say, but then you made clear where you come from :

that’s life as it’s taught in France

Whatever, expert.

thought so too – i rooted for spain, as so many times before, and they really ought to go through, one fine day, but they choked again and failed to score goals. zidane and ribery were both magic. henry…well. he cheats. and especialy when things don’t work for him or his timing goes off – first he start bitching at other players and then the professional misdemeanours begin.

so the consensus was that puyol was innocent? pity then.

even so, spain lacked finishing.

Henry played an awful match through and through. About 15 times off-side and nothing to show for it. I don’t know why the French have him playing forward instead of letting him play holding like he does in Arsenal.

Zidane, by contrast, did brilliantly. And Ribery, who outshone them all.

Spain were a disappointment.

Indeed, and it is called diving. If the player has the option to continue the play or to fall to the ground, no penalty should be given if he opts for the latter.

There is a difference between diving when there is nothing to dive about and diving when your opponent is late with his tackle. Often the attacker will have the option of continue the play in the latter case, but often he will also have been slowed down and/or lost balance. Hence it’s a foul. In that situation the diving, as I said, goes to demonstrate the foul. True diving is when no foul is committed in the first place.