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This is how France got into the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

There was nothing legitimate about this goal. Thierry Henry clearly used his hand to direct the ball and set up William Gallas for the game-winning score. However, none of the officials saw it. The goal stood. France goes to South Africa. Ireland goes home.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Henry will be labeled as a cheat for all eternity. Referee Martin Hansson has been labeled an incompetent, even by the press in his homeland. Some will use this incident to call for video technology. Others will argue that the Europa League-style backline officials would have caught this chicanery, disallowed the goal and booked Henry for cheating.

It changes nothing, however, and it puts the lie to the notion that football is somehow supposed to be fair and just. There is nothing fair about the games we call football. How fair was it to England that Diego Maradona’s goal was allowed to stand in 1986? How fair was it to Missouri that Colorado won a national championship after scoring on 5th down? You can find plenty of incidents over the last century where someone took advantage of the ref and got an undeserved win out of it. Humans are fallible. These things will happen, and people will tell you that if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying. If you can’t overcome the treachery with your own play, you’ll just have to live with the result.

I know that’s the last thing anyone in Ireland wants to hear today. They’ll tweet bloody murder. They’ll agree with every word Robbie Keane said. They’ll point to the Frenchman in charge of UEFA and claim he somehow planned this. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The goal counts. France goes to South Africa. Ireland goes home.

Perhaps if karma counts for anything, France’s World Cup adventure will be as short as its EURO 2008 adventure. Hey, Raymond Domenech is still in charge. It wouldn’t be all that odd.

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Does anyone really know what American club soccer is going to look like in 2010? Because after the news of the last two weeks, I’m starting to wonder.

For starters, we’re on the verge of having two competing 2nd-division leagues in this country next season. The Team Owners Association, a group of former USL clubs disgruntled with the structure of USL, made their big announcement on Tuesday that they were forming a breakaway league. The new league, which remains nameless for the time being, is slated to have seven clubs — Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina Railhawks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps and St. Louis Soccer United.

Conspicuous by their absence: the Tampa Bay Rowdies. They had been siding with the TOA all through this saga, but they’re committed to USL for 2010 — probably because they had already signed contracts with and paid their expansion fee to USL and couldn’t afford to break the deal.

USL’s response to this new league? Well, it was awfully snippy. Down to 8 clubs in USL-1 and 8 in USL-2, USL seems a little eager to throw roadblocks at the TOA’s attempt to get the new league sanctioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation and Canadian Soccer Association. The league also puffed out its chest and talked about expansion in new markets, even though that talk has the stench of the National Indoor Football League about it.

Meanwhile, there’s already a monkey wrench in the TOA’s breakaway plans. Joey Saputo, the Montreal Impact owner who was named Chairman of the Board of Governors of this new unnamed league, insisted that the Impact was still in negotiations with USL over the 2010 season. Why would he even say this publicly? All this did was undermine the TOA’s position and made it more difficult for them to attract the 8th club they might need to get sanctioning — or to lure clubs to their side in 2011, which could be the real battle between USL and the TOA.

The only good thing about this breakaway league? It won’t be a winter league. All the talk about American soccer adopting the FIFA calendar is still a non-starter — especially with a league that’s never played before. We have our own soccer calendar. So does Russia, and they’re doing just fine playing in the summer.

But this is all in the lower divisions, right? We’ll still have our Major League Soccer in 2010, won’t we?

Maybe.

The MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on January 31, and the Players Association, upset with the current minimum salaries and lack of guaranteed contracts, is threatening to strike. Both sides are at the negotiating table now, but MLS has already rejected the players’ first proposal and seems ready to dig in its heels and keep things just as they are, thank you very much.

I wonder if these negotiations will end up being a referendum on the structure of MLS itself. Players contracts are owned by the league and not the clubs, who still don’t control their own destiny within MLS’ arcane regulations, and these negotiations don’t look like they’re going to change that.

Even worse, though, is whether the public will even care if MLS doesn’t return next March. Outside of the clubs’ hardcore supporters, few seem aware that the MLS playoffs are happening right now, and that the league’s three most marketable names — Beckham, Blanco and Donovan — are in the thick of it. SportsCenter has made no mention of the MLS playoffs at all this morning.

In light of that, is it really a good idea for MLS to allow a strike to happen? It’s not like there’s no competition. Premier League ratings don’t suck for ESPN or Fox Soccer Channel right now, and the level of play remains much higher in Europe than it is here. Wouldn’t most soccer fans in this country just focus on the national team and the European leagues and forget about MLS if it’s not there?

The next four months or so could go a long way toward determining the future of American club soccer, and it would only take a few missteps for the whole thing to come crashing down, leaving this country back at square one, which would be a disaster. Let’s just hope the folks running the shows here do the right thing. We won’t be any better off if our clubs don’t play next year.

Every football team needs an enforcer. Bolton keeps Kevin Davies around for a reason. University of New Mexico defender Elizabeth Lambert, however, seems quite willing to ignore that fine line between playing hard and playing dirty. Or maybe she just figured that if Troy Polamalu’s hair is fair game, her opponents’ ponytails are, too.

Seriously, all she got was a yellow card? Did the ref think he was in the Azteca or something?

(Thanks, @bomani_jones.)

UPDATE (3:21 PM): UNM women’s soccer coach Kit Vela has suspended Elizabeth Lambert for her actions in this game.