Arsenal F.C. — Best pictures!

A mightily struggling France team found they way to South Africa through a combination of poor refereeing and unbelievable rotten luck for the Irish as Barcelona’s Thierry Henry played hand ball twice before his cross found Arsenal star William Gallas

The Russian team ultimately proved incapable of overcoming Slovenia in a two-game playoff for a berth to World Cup 2010 in South Africa, primarily due to the lack of inspiration in the game of its strike force headed by Arsenal star Andrei Arshavin (pictured

The French won game 1 of their World Cup playoff against Ireland with the narrowest of margins (1:0), but that helped the FTBL scores of defenders, particularly Arsenal’sBakari Sagna (pictured right), who added more than 15 rating points.

Despite a game in half-tones against Slovenia yesterday in his own admission, Russia skipper and Arsenal forward Andrei Arshavin (pictured in the center) still managed to slightly improve his overall FTBL score thanks to Russia’s overall victory.

As France netted a laborious but crucial 1:0 away win over Ireland in the fist game of their World Cup 2010 playoff yesterday, Olympique Lyon goalkeeper Hugo Lloris (pictured) earned a whopping 18.15 rating points in the FTBL system to break into the