St Ledger struggling to forget hand of Henry
Sean St Ledger admits he may never get over the heartache of missing out on this summer’s World Cup finals.
The Republic of Ireland defender and his compatriots were infamously denied their chance to secure a ticket to South Africa by Thierry Henry’s hand during their play-off clash with France in Paris last November.
St Ledger, 25, was just yards away from the incident and his fury after the game at the Stade de France was palpable. More than six months on, he is still coming to terms with seeing his dream torn apart.
Asked if that disappointment will ever go away, the Preston man said: “I don’t think so, no. I think it’s one of those moments in football that will probably last forever, like the Maradona ’Hand of God’.
“I am sure if you ask some of the players who played that day, they would probably say no, they never have (forgotten).
“But who knows? It’s a tough one. It’s kind of hard to, especially living in England with the build-up. Everyone is just geared up to the World Cup and it’s pretty hard to take at the moment with everything that’s surrounding England.
“Everyone is talking about it, and not to be part of it hurts.”
Instead, St Ledger will watch the tournament on television, and he would not be surprised if Henry and his team-mates make the most of their let-off.
He said: “I think I will watch it. I am a lover of football, so I will watch the games.
“It will be interesting to see how France do. I think they will win the World Cup, they are just destined to.
“It’s really, really hard to take, but what can you do?”
In the meantime, the Republic will concentrate on their preparations for the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign which gets under way in September, a process which starts in earnest with tonight’s friendly clash with Paraguay in Dublin.
Ireland have been drawn in the same group as Russia, Armenia, Andorra, Slovakia and Macedonia, and are hopeful of going one better this time around having enhanced their reputation under Giovanni Trapattoni during the last qualifying campaign.
St Ledger said: “With the France game and what happened, there was quite a lot of focus on it and a lot of people watched it, and we showed them what we can do.
“We always, as a country, seem to be underdogs. When we went to go to play in France, people wrote us off, but we showed them what we can do.
“With this campaign that’s coming up, we have got a great chance of playing at a major tournament.”
