Allez les Bleus
Remember that blog from a few days back, when I was praising the BBC's coverage? I may have to rescind a few of my plaudits from it, after the catastrophic commentary of the past few nights. I think Twitter had dealt enough with Phil Neville's aural Horlicks on Saturday night, so I didn't dwell on that in yesterday's bit, but Jonathan Pearce's incredible reaction to the first use of goal line technology for France's second goal of thier 3-0 win over Honduras hasn't had nearly as much scrutiny as it should.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27859408
The Beeb have done a good job in editing the sound on this clip to make him not come across too buffoonish on it, indeed it's made Clark Carlisle sound like an idiot instead. He must have been the only person watching the much lauded and long awaited debut of the goal line system, to not have had a scooby as to what was going on. The watching world knew that the initial effort had hit the post and not gone in, so while the replay at that point was a little surprising, no one was under any duress that the point of entry was when the ball bounced off the Honduran keeper.
NOT IN
IN
When it was shown to have crossed the line at that point, Pearce fell in to a self induced panic, doubting the technology and wondering how they could award the goal when it had been given as no goal before being given as a goal. You'd think that a man who has made a living out of seeing goals fly in for decades would be clued up on when a goal isn't a goal, especially now that the GLT is in place.
Instead his buffoonery has made him a meme, a gif and all sorts of target for online abuse (sorry Jono). Moments before the goal, he had admitted to being duped in to thinking Raheem Sterling had scored for England the previous night, while out for dinner, and vowed he'd not be caught out like that on commentary. He offered this nugget up after Blaize Matuidi hit the side netting, which he also initially thought was a goal.
Having done it myself, to a far lesser extent on MFCTV, commentary can be hard to do when you are caught in the heat of the moment. I once stated on air that I'd give back my fee for the night (a pie and a programme) if Gary Mackay Steven hadn't scored for Dundee United, so sure was I of the scorer.
It was Johnny Russell.
However, being 60 yards behind the goal and not having the benefit of multiple replays from multiple angles I had to wait until after the game to realise I had got it wrong, for which I apologised. As hi-tec an outfit as the Motherwell media team were, we didn't have that luxury, and thankfully,nor did we have a worldwide audience to cast me up for it.
Perhaps as a way of making Pearce feel better, Gary Lineker chimed in post match to question why we should believe the GLT to be accurate. "Is there someone behind the scenes frantically drawing a ball over the line?" (Paraphrased) , he mused to his fellow pundits, who must have thought Rio Ferdinand was at one of his hilarious World Cup Wind Ups.
As remarkably laughable as the whole Pearce confusion was, it did serve as some light relief in a game which wasn't bereft of drama from the off. With the Hondurans coming in to the game with a clogger's reputation, it was clear they wouldn't end the game with a full quotient of players. Bone crunching challenge after challenge was weighed upon the young French side, who mostly have the same kind of magnificent names as the 1998 World Cup winning squad.
For Zinedine Zidane, see Paul Pogba; Youri Djorkaeff, see Mathieu Debuchey, Bixente Lizarazu, see Blaize Matuidi. Those new names have a decent chance of emulating the older ones, if they get over their wastefulness in front of goal.
The first half was all one way traffic from the French, interrupted by motorway crashes and pile ups along the road. Wilson Palacios was the most reckless of Honduran drivers, obviously losing something in the translation of whatever the Honduran for "break up play" is, to read it as "break up the players". Tasty from the off, it was his thud,stamp and kick at Paul Pogba, and his theatrics after Pogba's retaliation that took things from a simmer to a boil.
Both men could easily have gone off, arguably more so Pogba as Palacios thuggery was only clear upon replay, where the Frenchman's kick out was instantly spotted. However, a wee lie down on the stretcher and a yellow card sufficed for Palacios, with Pogba given the same.
It was only a short stay of execution though, as an idiotic barge in to the back of Pogba in the box got him the early bath he'd so keenly been looking for.
BARGE
Karim Benzema's short run up generated a thunderbolt of a penalty in to the bottom right corner to give the French a 1-0 lead at half time. It should have been much more though, as they laid siege to their opponents goal when football was actually played in the first half. Valbuena created chance after chance down the right, Benzema and Cabaye were denied by last ditch defending and decent goalkeeping, with Valladares making a great stop from Matuidi and Griezman canyoning a header off the bar.
Didier Deschamps obviously noticed the lack of bulging net Nd sent his side out in the second half to make amends, which they heeded within five minutes of the restart. Technically, it didn't bulge the net, but we are all agreed it did cross the line, right? Good. It went down as an own goal the keeper for his fumbling hands nudging it over.
As the game went on, France remained in control of the ball, while the Hondurans failed to control their limbs. They were fortunate to just have Palacios red carded, particularly after a nasty high challenge by Emilio Izaguirre went unpunished, despite the linesman looking like he wanted to murder Emilio for it.
Benzema wrapped up the game with another blast, this time from an angle after Sakho's free kick found its way to him eight yards from goal. He must have been raging to find out that he didn't have a hat trick at the end of the match. Instead, his side had a hat trick of points (three), cuts and bruises all over the shop and the summit of Group E.
In the other Group E match, Switzerland came from a goal behind to ruin my coupon in injury time against Ecuador, while Lionel Messi scored a worldy in a nervy 2-1 win for Argentina over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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