On Wednesday the French national soccer team squared off against the Irish squad in a final World Cup qualifier, at the end of the game the French had taken a highly controversial victory. It all stems from French star striker Thierry Henry’s two accidental hand-balls which enabled him to corral the ball (despite also being offsides) and pass it to William Gallas who scored the winning goal for the French side.
The refs made no calls to disallow the goal despite Henri’s admission that he did touch the ball. “I will be honest, it was a handball,” Henry said, But I’m not the ref. I played it. The ref allowed it.”
The victory meant the French would be going to the World Cup in South Africa, and the Irish would be staying home. Obviously the Irish are LIVID and are asking FIFA, soccer’s international ruling body to allow the match to be replayed. FIFA’s initial response is not to replay the game. If FIFA allows the game to stand, Henry’s handball may live in soccer infamy, much like Diego Maradon’s famous “Hand of God” handball that beat the English in the 1986 World Cup.
Soccer season baby!
[Sky]
The Slanch Report 
Another ignorant Amerikkkan pig who thinks the French defeat of 1940 is hilarious.
Why don’t you read up a little (a first for you) on French military history.
A French military victory a day
http://frenchvictories.hautetfort.com
2000 years of French military victories.
http://www.peachmountain.com/5star/French_military_victories.aspx
Database with the names and cause of death of over 1,300,000 Frenchmen who died for France in World War I. http://bit.ly/GCsyQ“]http://bit.ly/GCsyQ
Out of these things is born their power of recuperation in their leisure; their reasoned calm while at work; and their superb confidence in their arms. Even if France of to-day stood alone against the world’s enemy, it would be almost inconceivable to imagine her defeat now; wholly so to imagine any surrender. The war will go on till the enemy is finished. The French do not know when that hour will come; they seldom speak of it; they do not amuse themselves with dreams of triumphs or terms. Their business is war, and they do their business.
R. Kipling, France at war
Firstly, I love the “Amerikkkan” thing you did there, that was reasonably clever.
Secondly, your evidence of lack of French surrenders all seems to end around WWI. What about WWII when the French spent millions of francs to build a defensive line that the German blitzkrieg completely bypassed. Within 6 weeks of entering France, Germany was in control. 6 weeks. Then of course the incredible success of France in Indochina. Oh and all those glorious victories in Africa. Oh and… hmm. Yeah, I got nothing because the FRENCH got nothing.
America doesn’t exist without the aid of the French, I’ll give full credit for that. Otherwise, militarily, y’all ain’t done shit. Napolean was a long long time ago.
There are few things more amusing than someone telling me I should read MORE history.
One occurrence doesn’t make a character trait you fat swine.
The only thing Americans have achieve by obsessively making fun of the French 1940 defeat, is turning otherwise pro American people into rabid anti-Americans. I’m not the only one.
Americans haven’t done shit either since WWII. Humiliated by 3rd world gooks in Nam even though the French had warned them against getting involved over there. Humiliated in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan by a bunch of teenagers armed with rusty rifles and of course letting a bunch of Arabs armed with cutters (we are still laughing about that one in France) fly planes into some of their buildings and the Pentagon. lol
And all that with a military budget higher than all the world’s put together.
Oh wait, you did beat Grenada. lol
By the by, pig, WWII ended in 1945 not 1940.
By then the French had shed more blood, sacrificed more men than their American “allies” and had several of their cities leveled by American bombs and British ones, a crime against humanity the brave and righteous swines never apologized for of course, too busy taking sole credit for winning WWII as they did in WWI.
A war in which France lost 1.3 million men (more than all American war dead ever) and which saw Northern France almost entirely destroyed.
Seriously, who the fuck are you behind your computer screen to call the the French, who have sacrificed so much more to win WWI and WWII than Americans people, cowards ?
Go fuck yourself and die.
Wow. Such vitriol! First off, thank you for taking this discourse towards personal insults and racist comments, as I think we can all agree that raises the level of conversation. Secondly, I like that you say “who the fuck are you behind your computer screen” when you don’t use your name and use a fake email address; there’s that famed French bravery.
Yes, WWII DID end in 1945, did that have more to do with the Americans invading France or with the French population who had already capitulated and allowed the Germans to do whatever they wished with their country. Or did you forget the shameful acts of the Vichy government? Also, I love your concern for Northern Africa as the French had shown such restraint and care in their rapine conquests of those lands.
Hey, the recent US military record has been super shitty, I never said otherwise, I actually never said ANYTHING about the US military, you’re the one who took this discussion there. I was merely showing an amusing set of fake letters between gov’t flunkies about a soccer match.
Why are you arguing about this, WWII ended 60 years ago. The US won, with a minor assist from the French, we got the trophy, we’re not giving it back. Get over it.
Had the American army not gotten involved everyone in France would be speaking German today and the rest of my Jewish relatives would have been murdered.
Also, your comment that you are “still laughing” about 9/11 is super classy.
Ans since I’ve always had a soft spot for retards and/or ignorant xenophobes such as yourself. Let me educate you a bit regarding France and WWII.
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METZ, FRANCE June 08, 2009
President Barack Obama’s visit to Normandy to commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day makes us think about the entire course of World War II, and the lingering propaganda or myths that still becloud it.
As a former instructor of military history and lover of history, let me address four of these myths that are particularly annoying and misleading:
First, France’s army did not simply surrender or run away in 1940, as ignorant American Know-Nothing conservatives claim.
The German Blitz that smote France on May-June, 1940, scattering its armies like leaves before a storm, was a historical revolution in warfare. Blitzkrieg combined rapidly-moving armor and mobile infantry, precision dive bombing, flexible logistical support, and new high technologies in C3 – command, control and communications. In 1940, Germany led the world in technology: 75% of all technical books were then written in German.
France’s armies and generals, trained to re-fight World War I, were overwhelmed by lightening warfare. France was then still a largely agricultural society. Blitzkrieg – now adopted by all major modern armed forces – was designed to strike an enemy’s brain rather than body, paralyzing his ability to manage large forces or to fight. The Germans called it their `silver bullet.’
Indeed it was. France still relied on couriers to deliver vital information. Germany was the world’s leader in mobile radio communications. Amazingly, the French commander in chief, Gen. Gamelin, did not even have a telephone in his HQ outside Paris.
Britain’s well-trained expeditionary force in France was beaten just as quickly and thoroughly as the French, and saved itself only by abandoning its French allies and fleeing across the Channel.
No army in the world at that time could have withstood Germany’s blitzkrieg, planned by the brilliant Erich von Manstein, and led by the audacious Heinz Guderian, and Erwin Rommel –three of modern history’s greatest generals.
They were also incredibly lucky. Just one bomb on a German bridge over the Meuse, or one impassable traffic jam in the Ardennes forest could have meant the difference between victory and defeat. The French had temporarily moved some of their weakest reserve units just into the sector the Germans struck. It was, as Wellington said after Waterloo, a damned close run thing.
Germany’s new, fluid tactics shattered France’s armies. They were unable to reform their lines in spite of often fierce resistance. The fast-moving German panzers were constantly behind them. Retreat under fire is the most difficult and perilous of all military operations. After six weeks, and a stab in the back by Mussolini’s Italy, France’s armies had disintegrated.
France lost 217,000 dead and 400,000 wounded. Compare that to America’s loss of 416,000 dead during four years of war in the Pacific and Europe. At least France did not suffer the 2 million dead it lost in World War I. Germany losses: 46,000 killed in action, 121,000 wounded, and 1,000 aircraft. By comparison, the US, British and Canadians lost some 10,000 dead and wounded at D-Day.
Second, the forts of France’s Maginot Line were not tactically outflanked, as myth has it. The Germans struck NW of the Line’s end, through the Belgian/French Ardennes Forest, a route anticipated by the French Army which held war games there in 1939. The immobile French field army failed, not the Maginot Line. It may have been too costly, tied down too many men, and came to symbolize France’s defensive attitude, but the Great Wall of France fulfilled its designated mission.
The Line was intended to only defend the coal and steel industries of Alsace and Lorraine, which it did.
The Germans concluded an attack on the Line would be too costly, and opted for a different route – through Belgium.
But the high water table of Flanders and France’s aversion to building forts behind its Belgian ally left the Franco-Belgian border with only scanty fixed defenses.
Ironically, after the German breakthrough at Sedan on the Meuse, a French corps held in reserve to
cover this vital sector moved east to the Stenay Gap to protect the Maginot Line’s left flank,
opening the way for Guderian’s panzers to fan out to the NW behind French lines.
The second largest amphibious operation in Western Europe during WWII was the totally forgotten German crossing under fire of the Rhine in June,1940.
The crews of the unconquered Maginot forts held out until the armistice. Those who mock France for building forts that were supposedly `outflanked’ should know the `impregnable’ modern US fortifications at Manila, and Britain’s Fortress Singapore, were both taken from the rear by the Imperial Japanese Army. Germany’s much vaunted `Westwall’ and coastal defenses fared no better.
Third – Germany’s Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were crushed well before D-Day. In commemorating the war, we must remember to salute the courage and valor of Russia’s dauntless soldiers and pilots who, like German soldiers, fought magnificently albeit for criminal regimes. World War II in Europe was not won just at D-Day, as popular myth has it. Germany’s army and air force were broken on the Eastern Front’s titanic battles.
The numbers speak for themselves. The Soviets destroyed 75-80% of all German divisions – 4 million soldiers – and most of the Luftwaffe. Russia lost at least 14 million soldiers and a similar number of civilians. The Red Army destroyed 507 Axis divisions. On the Western Front after D-Day, the Allies destroyed 176 badly under-strength German divisions.
When the Allies landed in Normandy, they met battered German forces with no air cover, crippled by lack of fuel and supplies, unable to move in daytime. Even so, the Germans fought like tigers. Had the invading US, British and Canadians encountered the 1940’s Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, the outcome may well have been different.
Fourth – World War II was not a good and evil struggle between `western democracies’ and `totalitarian powers,’ as we are still wrongly taught.
It was a world conflict over land and resources pitting the British Empire which controlled 25% of the entire globe, the French Empire, Dutch Empire, and Belgian Empire, and, later, the US imperium(Philippines, Pacific possessions, Cuba, Central America), against the Italian and Japanese empires. The Soviet Union was an empire unto itself.
In 1939, the only major powers without colonies – that were not imperial powers – were Germany(who lost her few colonies in World War I) and China. Once the war ended, Britain and Holland, who complained mightily about the evils of Nazi occupation, scrambled to reoccupy their former colonies, some of which had declared independence.
One can hardly call this a crusade for freedom. Liberation for the white people of German-occupied Europe, certainly. But not for the peoples of Africa and Asia. However, in the end, the war did set in motion forces that would eventually spell the end of colonialism. The collapse of the British Empire, which Winston Churchill had vowed to defend at all costs, opened the way to worldwide decolonization.
We should not forget all this.
Eric S. Margolis 2009
http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/getting-to-the-truth-about-world-war-ii.aspx
***********************************************************************************************
I hope you’re a little less dumb now, pig.
this just in: the french have little to no sense of humor! and are EXTREMELY touchy about that whole lack of preparation while their neighbor country (a military regime) manufactured an indestructible mechanized army of chaos in the 1930s.
while it might not be the inaccurately portrayed cowardice certain americans wrongly believe, it does demonstrate a general arrogance (or ignorance, your pick) toward a country it had just been at war with 20 years prior. suffice to say, the soviet union absorbed the body blows of WWII — and landed many of their counter punches as well. france and england could do little more than sweat it out, suggesting that Nazi Germany would have been better off pushing west and securing their African resources rather than venturing into the Soviet Union. sorry america wasn’t right there for you. we had the whole japanese army island-hopping their way to australia and california.
there was a genocide going on as well. i’m not sure if that made it on your radar in france. i don’t really recall a lot of french units freeing concentration camps. probably because the Vichy government sent a shitload of them there. OH SNAP! that’s right. you hate jews.
in closing, if you can’t take a joke about surrender, cheating and soccer, then you should — and pardon my french — should fuck off.
Oh sure humor.
The last refuge of the xenophobes.
We hate Jews ?
Our President is half Jewish and we’ve had several Jewish Prime ministers. Before and after WWII.
Some antisemitic country!
Read about antisemitism in France.
http://superfrenchie.com/?p=1220
By the way, the American government was the first one (the first) to recognize the Vichy regime and establish diplomatic relations with it.
Touchy ?
Yes absolutely. We can take a joke once in a while like every one else. But this has turned into an obsession. Joking about the biggest tragedy in French history every time the French are mentioned has become routine for too many in your country.
Eat shit, pig.
hah. can we be facebook friends?
Hank Scorpio: By the way, Homer, what’s your least favorite country? Italy or France?
Homer: France.
[Scorpio adjusts a giant laser cannon pointing towards the sky]
Hank Scorpio: Heh heh heh. Nobody ever says Italy…
it’s never been more true.
can you give me some other kind of prompt? i’d like to google search then post a bunch of links to you. you know, so you can educate yourself or whatever.
lastly, BR, can you at least admit — as the point of this post was to begin with — that Thierry Henry got away with some cheap stuff and France’s route into the World Cup this year is questionable at best?
I can admit that.
But it’s no excuse for ethnic slurs.
shatraw. Educate me on anti-French”jokes” ?
I doubt it since I’ve heard it all.
But if you want anti-French material
you can always apply for a cock sucking job at http://www.fuckfrance.com
I’d rather stick with historical facts.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“But it’s no excuse for ethnic slurs.”
What about “Humiliated by 3rd world gooks in Nam”
Or is that not an ethnic slur?
ethnic slurs?
A) French is not an ethnicity. it’s a nationality.
B) no anti-french ethnic slurs were used in the making of any of this. i just searched the page for “frog” and didn’t find it once. i did find the word “pig” more than a few times, though…
you sure came at americans in what some might call an ironic, rather uncivilized attack. while i respect your passion — how can i not when you so brazenly and careless wield it — the fact that you haven’t once tried to elevated this into an intelligent discourse and have relied on name-calling (not to mention jabbing your thumb into the 9/11 wound) belies any legitimacy you have and reveals that you are, in fact, a moron.
the funniest part is, i don’t even hate france. although i was disappointed that paris was a lot dirtier than i expected it to be. the beautiful Fontaine Saint-Michel was filled with lots of litter. maybe tourists? but how awesome is the rodin museum?
this would be your cue to start ranting about how we are filthy pigs and american cities are disgusting, souless monuments of pollution that lack history.
and hey, way to not give up here, man. i see what you’re doing 😉
you guys should make out
only if you join in the fun!
also, myummers, take a look at this fantastic conspiracy (brought to you, in part, by the country France): http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/conspiracy-watch-were-dark-ages-faked
What just happened?
First off, I’m French (and I live in Paris) but I’m American as well.
Also, I saw the game, and I was outraged that they counted it! Very Unfair.
I think its funny that people are calling Henry captain of the French Handball team.
How did we get from soccer to military defeats and WWII? Umm, what?
C’est quoi ton problème Br? Take it down a notch and follow what you preach. You are trying to make a point about racial slurs yet you insult Americans through them in each of your posts.
Way to show ’em.
Soccer makes people crazy, a little too much in my opinion.
And to finish on a more appropriate note: I’m still happy that France qualified.
I am stunned that the US is too, though. They seem to be getting really good at soccer 🙂
my favorite frenh/american hybrid:
actually, maybe he was from Louisiana?