A dressing room full of players in tears, while back home, a nation is outraged as the referee misses a clear handball with an outcome that’s devastating for the national team.
t’s not Paris 2009, with Thierry Henry’s infamous handball, but Dublin 2011, an event never to be forgotten in Armenia. Their ‘what if?’ moment. To recap, in the final group game for the Euro 2012 qualifiers, Ireland hosted Armenia, with second place up for grabs between the two teams in a group already won by Russia.
Twenty-five minutes in, Armenia looked the more likely winners than a nervous and unconvincing Irish side. Then, the Spanish referee saw an incident on the edge of the box with ’keeper Roman Berezovsky and decided the away player had handled the ball outside his area, although he had chested it, and sent the Armenian off. However, he had missed a handball by Irish striker Simon Cox moments before and had allowed play to continue.
So Armenia lost their net-minder, meaning their third-choice ’keeper came off the bench for his debut, forcing them to play away from home with 10 men for over an hour.
They looked on with a growing rage as Ireland ended up with a 2-1 win after going 2-0 up. The victory gave the Republic second place, the play-off draw was kind (Ireland got Estonia) and Giovanni Trapattoni’s men went to the finals, while Armenia never recovered from that blow and spent a decade playing catch-up. And thought ‘what if?’
“Looking back, it’s a great pity. We were so close to qualifying,” says Vardan Minasyan, Armenia’s manager at the time.
“The players were in tears after the game. I was more calm, maybe it’s because I am older and more experienced. I knew that life is not always fair. Sometimes the big nations get decisions that smaller teams don’t get.
“In Ireland, you say that France got a decision against you [2009] because they were a big nation. At the time, a lot of Armenian people said it was the same for us in 2011. The big nation – Ireland – got the decision in their favour. Then you got Estonia in the play-off, the weakest team in the draw, and I know we could have beaten them. We could have finished second ahead of you. We could have gone to the Euros. But I know if you expect life to be fair, you’ll be disappointed.”
The 48-year-old, though, is not expecting a revenge mission approach from Armenia today.
“For me, it’s gone, it was 11 years ago. You move on in your life and none of those players from 2011 are still in the squad. In my career, I never speak about the referee, but that night was a difficult one for me. It happened very quickly and the referee made a quick decision,” he says.
“It was a pity for us, what happened, but that’s football. We had a young squad and it was a good achievement for us to go so close. We had to play for 65 minutes with our third-choice goalkeeper, making his debut.
“It was no foul. It was a handball by your player, we can see this on the TV. Your player (Cox) told our players after the game that he had handled the ball. It should have been a free-kick for us.
“Some people in Armenia still speak about the game.
“We do remember that the game was the last international match for that referee. That says a lot.
“I think Armenian people remember the referee more than the Irish player who was involved. Perhaps the supporters today will make some noises about it, but it’s about supporting their team, not remembering something that happened 11 years ago.”
Trapattoni’s Ireland finished four points ahead of Armenia, but the two games involving the teams could have been draws instead of Irish wins, as it took a late Keith Fahey goal for Ireland to win 1-0 in Yerevan.
“Experience won it for you,” he says. “We had a lot of energy. I had taken 10 or 11 players from our Under-21s into the senior squad, they were good players, but we had no experience and Ireland had all these Premier League players. You had [Robbie Keane] and [Richard] Dunne and [Damien] Duff – I don’t know the names of the Irish players now. So in Yerevan, the experienced team won against the youngsters. The game was very even until your player scored the goal. Maybe a 0-0 would have been fair.”
Irish eyes already had a glimpse of Armenian talent as their side had just trounced the Republic 4-1 and 2-1 at U-21 level and players like Henrikh Mkhitaryan emerged (he was the overall top scorer in the qualifying group for Euro 2012).
They pushed for qualification for the next tournament, the 2014 World Cup, drawing away to Italy and winning 4-0 in Denmark, but from a hard-won place in the top 30 of the FIFA rankings, they’ve been on a slide (Armenia now 94th in the world) and Euro 2012 was their missed opportunity.
Mkhitaryan, who retired from international football earlier this year, is badly missed, though Minasyan plays down the recent 9-0 friendly loss to Norway.
“Henrikh is a big loss for us. You can see the clubs he played for, so take a player like that out of your team and you will be weaker. He was our biggest player and it’s a challenge for the new generation to try and do as well,” says Minasyan.
“Vahan Bichakhchyan, who plays in Poland, is a very strong, Eduard Spertsyan in midfield is also very promising and can play at a higher level. He’s in Russia now with Krasnodar and I also like Tigran Barseghyan, who’s with Slovan Bratislava. Henrikh was a great guy to manage, he had a great football brain. I see players who have talent but do not have the right attitude.
“They become big stars in their own heads and go the wrong way. If our young players can keep the right attitude, they can do well, but finding a new Mkhitaryan will be very difficult.”
https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/international-soccer/armenia-recall-their-thierry-henry-moment-a-decade-on-from-incident-in-dublin-clash-41719000.html