France ensured the likes of Franck Ribery, Karim Benzema and Thierry Henry will be at the World Cup in South Africa next year after winning through with a goal that has left Irish fans seething.

There was nothing wrong with the finish from William Gallas, but Thierry Henry admitted using his hand to keep the ball in play and commentators and Irish supporters are already talking of “The Hand of God II” and “The Hand of Henry” in reference to Diego Maradona in 1986.

“Yes, there is handball but I am not the referee,” Henry told reporters. “I’m in the box, there are two defenders in front of me. The ball bounced off my hand, the referee did not see it and I played on.”

Ireland coach Giovanni Trapattoni called the goal a “great mistake” by Swedish referee Martin Hansson but he chose not to accuse Henry of cheating.

“I told the referee that it is possible to make great mistakes,” Trapattoni told a new conference after the game at Stade de France. “It is a bitter evening.”

Trapattoni said he felt the referee should have talked to his assistants and to Henry before awarding the goal.

“I am sad because the referee had time to ask the linesman and I am sure he should have asked Henry as well,” the Italian said.

The result, 1-1 on the night, gave France a 2-1 aggregate win and saw them join Portugal, Greece and Slovenia as the successful sides on the final night of European qualifying.

So Ribery and the rest will join Cristiano Ronaldo and Deco at the finals, after Portugal booked their place with a more convincing performance away to Bosnia.

Joining the list of big name players to miss out are Andriy Shevchenko, after Ukraine were denied by Greece, and Andrei Arshavin, following Russia’s elimination against Slovenia.

With Algeria winning through 1-0 against Egypt in Sudan, 31 of the 32 places have been decided, with Uruguay v Costa Rica to decide the one remaining issue.

France wining through against Ireland was by no means a shock but the manner of their victory will be painful to take for a team that played out of their skins in the French capital.

(Post updated with quotes)

Argentina coach Diego Maradona will appear in person before a disciplinary hearing at FIFA headquarters on Sunday to explain his foul-mouthed outbursts (plural) following the win over Uruguay in Montevideo last month.

The result, at the very end of an 18-match campaign, finally clinched Argentina’s place at the 2010 World Cup after they had looked in serious danger of missing out for the first time since 1970. Maradona “celebrated” with an expletive-laden tirade at the hapless touchline reporter who went to interview him.

If he had left it at that, he could perhaps have passed it off as a heat of the moment incident. Instead, he spewed out more obscenities — which he says were aimed at the media — at the post-match press conference, broadcast live on a number of networks in several countries.

FIFA quickly caught on and opened disciplinary proceedings for his unruly behaviour. These could result in a stadium ban which, if applied only to competitive games, would effectively rule him out of part or possibly all of Argentina’s World Cup campaign.

Maradona would basically be restricted to organising training sessions (which so far under his leadership have resembled playground kickabouts) and giving motivational speeches at the team hotel to his players.

Maradona said he was angry at non-stop criticism of his coaching and team selections, reports that he has fallen out with his coaching staff and suggestions that he is not up to the job.

The criticism came after he used more than 70 players and lost World Cup qualifiers to Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil and Ecuador.

The Clarin newspaper also pointed out that when he was on the sidelines, Maradona was perfectly happy to publicly slag off his predecessors Marcelo Bielsa, Jose Pekerman and Alfio Basile.

Some media say they are tired of Maradona giving exclusive interviews to a few hand-picked chums and ignoring the rest, with the added insult that, when he does give a press conference, it is invariably cancelled or delayed.

What should FIFA do? And, if he is banned, should Argentina look for someone else who could actually coach the team from the dugout?

PHOTO: Argentina coach Diego Maradona celebrates after his team won its 2010 World Cup qualifying match against Uruguay in Montevideo October 14, 2009. REUTERS/Andres Stapff

The prospect of seeing Sergio “Kun” Aguero pulling on a blue shirt next season instead of the red and white stripes of Atletico Madrid must be a mouthwatering one for any Chelsea fan.

The 21-year-old Argentina striker, nicknamed “Kun” after a Japanese cartoon character with a similar hairstyle, showed why he remains a target for top clubs when he came off the bench and scored two superb goals in the 2-2 draw at the Calderon on Tuesday.

Cash-strapped Atletico turned down offers for him over the close season including, reportedly, one of around 35 million euros from Chelsea. His contract includes a buyout clause worth 60 million.

The London club are waiting to hear the result of their appeal against FIFA’s transfer ban and could make another move for Aguero either in the January transfer window or next summer.

Coach Carlo Ancelotti said this week he could see Aguero playing alongside Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba but added that he thought it would be hard for Chelsea to snare the Argentine.

The contrasting playing styles of the pair were evident on Tuesday.

Aguero, with his low centre of gravity, is hard to shake off the ball and is at his best running at defenders. On his day he is a deadly finisher, as Barcelona found out to their cost last season.

Drogba is all about muscle, which he used to good effect on Tuesday when he outjumped the Atletico defence to score a header and then bulldozed his way through to net a second.

Aguero fathered a son, Benjamin, with Diego Maradona’s daughter Giannina in February and Maradona, who is also Aguero’s boss as Argentina coach, advised him last year to seek a move to Inter Milan.

Atletico, 18th in La Liga after nine matches with just one win, are almost certain to miss out on a Champions League spot for next season, making it much more likely Aguero will move on from the Spanish capital.

PHOTO: Atletico Madrid’s Sergio “Kun” Aguero (L) scores with a free kick against Chelsea, Nov 3, 2009. REUTERS/Juan Medina

Unusually, the final night of European World Cup qualifying is a bit of a damp affair. Most of the groups have been decided, with by and large just the second-places, and play-off berths, up for grabs.

Undeterred, we shall keep you up to date with what’s going on in Europe as a prelude to the really serious business of the night … the decisive match in Montevideo, where Argentina are playing for their lives against Uruguay.

Here at Reuters Soccer Blog we particularly welcome comments, so please give us your views on how things are going as the actions progresses.

The above picture was the defining image of Argentina’s dramatic 2-1 victory over Peru in the rain on Saturday, and perhaps Diego Maradona’s tenure as national team coach to date.

For many in Argentina, Maradona’s reactions are indicative of an approach to the job that is too emotional.

Whatever he is really thinking, he often looks slightly bemused on the touchline when his team are not in control. He has been criticised for being unable to make the right substitutions, though he did pull a rabbit out of the hat with the introduction of mircale maker Martin Palermo, a striker who has been dubbed “the goal optimist”.

When Maradona celebrates he is like any fan and while his dive on to the sodden pitch after Palermo’s winner made for great pictures, the sports talk shows have been asking whether it was the image the national team manager should be giving.

The always elegant Cesar Luis Menotti, the coach who wrought a sea change in how Argentina’s national team is run when he took charge in 1974 and set the tone for two World Cup victories, is probably having nightmares watching the present side.

Yet here they are, one win away form clinching a place at the World Cup finals.

Might emotional Maradona yet have the last laugh?

PHOTO: Diego Maradona celebrates Argentineas winning goal in their World Cup qualifier against Peru in Buenos Aires, October 10, 2009. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

Lionel Messi walks off the pitch in Asuncion his head bowed after Argentina’s 1-0 defeat to Paraguay. A few days later he scores for Barcelona and the dimpled grin is back on his face.

Diego Maradona says that on the compact Rosario central pitch Argentina will pin Brazil against their goal. They do up to a point, with masses of possession, but Dunga’s men demolish them in lethal counter-attacks with Maradona watching in glum silence and Argentina return to River Plate for next month’s key World Cup qualifier against Peru.

“Coco” Basile is all grins, throaty one-liners and “I know the dressing room inside out” at his official presentation as Boca Juniors coach on July 1. Last weekend it was his empty look the cameras caught as he walked off the Bombonera pitch after another defeat.

Nestor Gorosito welcomes the three musketeers Ariel Ortega, Marcelo Gallardo and Matias Almeyda at the start of a new campaign last month. Last week he went sprawling in the mud on the side of the pitch when a Lanus player slid into him in pouring rain during a 1-0 defeat that put River Plate out of the Copa Sudamericana, and the crowd cheered.

Argentina’s big teams, the national side that have won two World Cups and the multi-decorated Boca Juniors and River Plate, are not well and fans and media are struggling to understand why.

Former Argentina captain Roberto Ayala said recently in Spain he saw a “surprising lack of rebellion” in Argentina’s players against their situation as Maradona’s side hovered dangerously close to World Cup elimination.

The coaches may not have the answers but players who week in, week out make the European headlines for their clubs, the likes of Messi, Carlos Tevez, Sergio Aguero and Diego Milito, are failing to deliver for Argentina.

Does at least part of the answer lie in the fact that Argentina, who won the last two World Youth Cups, did not even qualify for this year’s tournament kicking off on Thursday in Egypt?

Yet it was the very World Youth Cup that made world junior champions of Maradona in 1979, Juan Roman Riquelme and Pablo Aimar in 1997, Andres D’Alessandro in 2001, Messi in 2005 and Aguero in 2007. There is no questioning their quality.

Argentina may be lacking a midfield general, the kind of traditional No.10 who strolled the pitch spraying telling passes, the most recent of which was Riquelme.

Captain Javier Mascherano is not that man. Apart from the fact he is off his game, he patrols the area in front of the back four as Americo Gallego did for Cesar Menotti’s 1978 world champions.

Maradona’s Argentina now rely on Juan Sebastian Veron — suspended against Peru after being sent off against Paraguay — to dictate play but he is being asked to play further upfield than he does to greater effect from deeper for Estudiantes.

Argentina bunch up in the middle of their opponents’ half, the forwards often get in each others’ way and the defence is left thin and open to the counter-punch.

Sadly, River Plate and Boca Juniors, two of the country’s traditional player production lines, have dried up in that department. All the most recent major exports are strikers.

Former River Plate midfielders Pablo Aimar, now at Benfica, and Andres D’Alessandro, who is in Brazil with Internacional, are on people’s tongues again as the sort of No.10 Argentina need.

Maradona as a player was that and much more. He appears unable, though, to inject his team with the passion he showed in an Argentina shirt or, as their coach, a strategy that brings the best out of them.

PHOTO: Argentina’s Lionel Messi pauses during their World Cup qualifying defeat against Paraguay in Asuncion, Sept 9, 2009. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

If Renault are found guilty of the race-fixing charge they face in Paris next week -- and the Formula One team announced today they would not be contesting it -- the incident will go down as one of the most brazen attempts at rule-breaking in sport.

As our F1 correspondent Alan Baldwin asked on this blog last week, What would you do if someone asked you to drive into a wall?

There are seemingly endless ways to cheat at sport. Here are a few of the most notorious examples from the depths of the sporting archives:

CHICAGO WHITE SOX - After the heavily favored Chicago White Sox lost the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, eight players were charged with being paid by gamblers to throw the championship. The players, including the legendary "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, were banned for life.

BORIS ONISCHENKO - Russian pentathlete Boris Onischenko was sent home in disgrace from the 1976 Montreal Olympics after the Soviet Army Major was found to have rigged the electronic scoring system thanks to a circuit-breaker in the handle of his epee.

DIEGO MARADONA - Argentina won a 1986 World Cup soccer quarter-final against England in Mexico 2-1, with Maradona scoring the first of his two goals with his hand. "it was a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God," the player said in his post-match news conference, coining one of the most famous quotes in sport.

BEN JOHNSON - Days after winning the 100 metres in a world record time at the 1988 Seoul Olympics the Canadian athlete Johnson tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol and was stripped of his gold medal. The media had been captivated by the rivalry between Johnson and Carl Lewis ahead of the race and the Candian's subsequent positive test shocked the world.

TONYA HARDING - Harding was banned for life from Olympic skating for trying to cover up a 1994 knee-clubbing of rival Nancy Kerrigan by her then-husband Jeff Gillooly and an associate.

HANSIE CRONJE - In 2000 former South Africa captain Cronje stunned the cricket world after admitting he had accepted about $130,000 from bookmakers to influence the course of matches. He
was subsequently banned for life from the game. Cronje died in a plane crash in June 2002 aged just 32.

PARALYMPICS - In 2000 Spain's Paralympic basketball team were ordered to hand back gold medals won at the Sydney Games after 10 of their players were found to have no disability.

HARLEQUINS - In August Dean Richards resigned as director of rugby at Harlequins, and was then suspended from world rugby for three years for his role in a faked blood injury to wing Tom Williams during a Heineken Cup game against Leinster.

With a large tip of the hat to Dave Cutler and Chris Barnett of the Editorial Reference Unit here at Reuters.

Join Owen Wyatt for our regular wrap of world sport. This week, it’s a World Cup qualifier special, as we consider the plight of Diego Maradona and the battle for golden tickets for South Africa 2010.

We particularly welcome comments, so if you’d like to critique Owen’s schoolboy fashion errors, please do…

Those waiting for Diego Maradona to resign or be sacked after yet another dismal Argentina performance in the World Cup qualifiers forget that he is untouchable.

Maradona will press on blindly, brushing off criticism with remarks about having always fought adversity and come out on top.

The team he led to victory in the 1986 World Cup forged their solidarity in the them-and-us syndrome: Them being influential people in Buenos Aires, like then government Sports secretary Rodolfo O’Reilly, trying to get coach Carlos Bilardo ousted weeks before the tournament in Mexico when they looked a poor team.

Victory served to increase Maradona’s self-belief and aura of invincibility.

Maradona recalled on Wednesday night that Argentina were close to elimination in the qualifiers for the 1986 finals and that they had to play Australia in a playoff for the 1994 tournament.

He is the arch-survivor, from the time an uncle plucked him as a little boy out of a cesspit in the shantytown where he grew up to the several occasions when he cheated death by drugs or obesity after retiring as a player.

Whether or not he is a good coach, an astute leader of men, an inspiration to his players doesn’t come into it: Faith is the issue and “The Hand of God” claims to have plenty.

Maradona’s appointment last October appalled a lot of Argentines but just as many had faith that he could inspire the team like no-one else, touch Lionel Messi with his magic wand and transform Argentina.

Good results in friendlies in his early games in charge fuelled the faith and a 4-0 home win over Venezuela in his first qualifier in charge looked good — on paper.

Ultimately it did a lot of damage, because the team tried to play the same game more than 3,500 metres up in the rarefied air of La Paz and got pasted 6-1 by Bolivia.

There has been just one win in the four qualifiers since, 1-0 at home to Colombia who were unlucky not to get at least a draw.

In Maradona’s defence, the team played well away to Ecuador in their next away game at altitude, pacing themselves, but a penalty miss by Carlos Tevez denied them the halftime lead they deserved. They lost their legs in the final quarter of an hour and conceded two late goals to go down 2-0.

The Brazil and Paraguay defeats in the last six days followed, leaving Argentina in the playoff position.

Tevez’s Argentina form is symptomatic of the team’s ills. He is no longer the South American Tevez who inspired Boca Juniors and Corinthians to titles. He has moulded himself into the ultimate idol of the English fans’ and managers’ love of the work ethic. He always gave his all but he seems to have lost his ball touch.

Messi’s performances have merely highlighted the superb job Pep Guardiola does at Barcelona where the Argentine wonder kid responds brilliantly to a tune dictated by Xavi and Iniesta.

Argentines want to see the Barcelona Messi playing for their country but there is no strong team structure for him to shine in and he can’t carry the team like Maradona did at a similar age.

The Argentina team became Maradona’s baby as a captain. It is no different as a coach, only he lacks the ability from the touchline to carry the team to victory that he had as a player.

Critics have said they hope Maradona fails and Argentina don’t go to the finals in South Africa so the team can make a new start. A process that brought Argentina five of their record six World Youth Cups in the last decade and a half and produced a team who were favourites to win the senior title in 2002 and met Brazil in the 2004 and 2007 Copa America finals has hit the buffers.

Maradona believes only he can save them.

PHOTO: Diego Maradona sits on the bench during Argentina’s defeat by Paraguay in Asuncion, Sept. 9, 2009. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

Ten wins in a row and unbeaten for eighteen games. The run includes 2-0 and 3-0 wins over Italy, 4-0 wins in Uruguay and Venezuela, 3-0 in Chile and, of course, Saturday’s 3-1 demolition of Argentina, the first time Brazil’s arch-rivals have lost at home for 16 years. Nothing, it seems, can stand in the way of Dunga’s Brazil and and a sixth world title.

There’s only one small problem: everyone was saying the same about Carlos Alberto Parreira’s team four years ago after they won the Confederations Cup with a 4-1 win over Argentina in the final. Like Dunga’s team, they were Copa America champions at the time and their so-called Magic Quarter of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka and Adriano looked unstoppable.

Instead, Brazil relaxed. They took the Confederations Cup too seriously, forgetting that the Argentine side they had beaten was a second-string line-up. Their pre-World Cup training camp in the small Swiss village of Weggis had a carnival atmosphere. Five thousand paying spectators packed a specially constructed arena to watch every single training session. A subdued World Cup campaign ended with a 1-0 defeat to France in the quarter-finals. 

This time, the Brazilian confederation has vowed not to repeat the mistakes. Dunga, who shuns celebrity status for both himself and his players, is probably the last coach in the world who would accept such a set-up. But there are other things which could go wrong.

Brazil are heavily dependant on striker Luis Fabiano and goalkeeper Julio Cesar and a loss of form for either player would seriously weaken them.

Luis Fabiano has scored five goals at the Confederations Cup and nine in the World Cup qualifiers despite playing in only nine of their 15 games. They have looked fairly toothless when he has been absent .Julio Cesar has been in inspired form and has often made the difference.

Luck also comes into it and Brazil have been getting all the breaks recently. Their match away to Ecuador in March last June was an extraordinarily one-sided affair in which the hosts should have been several goals to the good by halftime. Instead, Brazil somehow sneaked a 1-1 draw.

Brazil again found themselves under the cosh in Uruguay, yet managed to go in 2-0 ahead at halftime thanks to some more heroics from Julio Cesar and a blunder from his opposite number Sebastian Viera. It was a similar story on Saturday when Argentina did all the attacking but Brazil led 2-0 at halftime. And we must not forget the farcical penalty which gave them a 4-3 win over Egypt at the Confederations Cup.

Brazil’s World Cup opponents are less likely to play into their hands than their South American neighbours.

Dunga has turned Brazil into a counter-attacking outfit who are at their most comfortable away from home against teams who come out and take the initiative.

Argentina, who have descended into chaos under the leadership of Diego Maradona, played straight into Dunga’s hands as they poured forward in Rosario and left gaping holes at the back.

World Cup opponents are likely to be play more like Colombia and Bolivia, who both held on for goalless draws in Rio de Janeiro as they exposed Brazil’s lack of ideas when faced with packed defences.

PHOTO: Brazil players salute their supporters at the end of the World Cup qualifying win over Argentina in Rosario, September 5, 2009 REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian