Thought Overflow

Anybody who has ever claimed to be a fan of the beautiful game called football will admit, either willingly or grudgingly, that Thierry Henry is one of the modern legends of the game. Having built a reputation for being a prolific, clinical and amazingly gifted striker at Arsenal FC (England), Henry has had a wonderful career playing for FC Barcelona (Spain) and the French national team, and he is still going strong. Everybody loves him, and many regard him as a modern god of the game.

On November 18, 2009, in the World Cup Qualifier between France and the Republic of Ireland, 70,000 spectators saw Thierry Henry deliberately touching the ball with his hand and passing it to team-mate William Gallas to score the goal that would send France into the World Cup, and Ireland to the lowest rungs of despair. The Irish were the underdogs here, but they had fought bravely through the two legs of the qualifier and had deserved to go through, had it not been for the hand that fate played.

I was speaking about this incident with a friend of mine (Ishan), and while we agreed that Henry had in one moment fallen from his golden pedestal and had forever condemned himself to be labelled a cheat, he told me something that had me thinking all this while. Put yourself in his shoes…the stakes were so high, what would you have done? It’s understandable that he did what he did.

Is it, really?

Here comes the problem. We hold our heroes up high and glorify them because we want to be like them. We think they’re perfect, or close to perfect. We try to emulate them and celebrate their successes as our own. But when they falter, why do we forgive them?

Because we put ourselves in their shoes, and we lose the courage to live up to our ideals. We forgive our heroes, because if they can do something wrong, then it’s ok if we do something wrong too. We dislike disliking ourselves for the things we do wrong. If we can forgive those we adore, then we can forgive ourselves much easier. STOP forgiving! Stop being afraid to hate yourself for a bit. I understand that nobody’s perfect, but should we not try to get there, somehow?