A long nightmare ended for soccer lovers on Thursday when their favourite sport returned to the front page of French sports daily L’Equipe. There was Thierry Henry, who had just surpassed Michel Platini to become France’s top scorer of all time with 43 goals after the two he scored in a 2-0 win over Lithuania in an Euro 2008 qualifier the previous night in Nantes.

Before that, for weeks, it had been rugby, rugby, rugby. In the news, on advertising boards, in talk shows … a sport normally restricted to the southwestern areas of the country was everywhere.

Soccer fans became tired of hearing that their rugby counterparts were better behaved, although that is largely true, and players were fed up being told that in rugby, nobody ever contests a refereeing decision and only the captain can talk to the ref, providing he does so politely. True, too.

Football surfaced now and again, like when New Zealand’s reserves played soccer with the Portugal players after hammering them in a pool game at the Gerland stadium, home to six-times French champions Olympique Lyon, or when it became known that Springbok wing Bryan Habana was named after Bryan Robson.

France would have liked to use football as an inspiration and emulate the national soccer team who lifted the World Cup on home soil nine years ago. Unfortunately, England and Jonny Wilkinson had other ideas.

However, after France beat Lithuania and England lost to Russia in Wednesday’s Euro 2008 qualifying action, nobody in the country was arguing about which sport really mattered.

On Thursday, kids who had been spotted playing with those strange, oval-shaped, pointy things a few days before were kicking proper footballs again. And public transport was on strike. Back to normal, at last.

Patrick Vignal, Paris

PHOTO: France’s Thierry Henry celebrates after scoring against Lithuania during their Euro 2008 Group B qualifying soccer match in Nantes October 17, 2007. REUTERS/Charles Platiau