France vs Republic of Ireland preview: Martin O'Neill 'absolutely' believes 'Hand of Henry' will inspire the Irish

Ireland qualified by beating Italy - albeit an understrength, half-interested Italy

Martin O'Neill is on the cusp of history with the Republic of Ireland (Getty)

The shadow of football’s other infamous handball hangs over the Euro 2016 tie between France and Republic of Ireland, however much both teams tried to play it down yesterday.

Thierry Henry may be a highly-paid TV pundit in England and immortalised in bronze at Arsenal but across the Irish Sea he is the man whose illicit paw denied the Irish a place at the 2010 World Cup.

Henry’s handball enabled William Gallas to equalise in the Paris play-off - a full re-run of which was shown on French TV this this week - and give France a 2-1 aggregate win. The Irish FA were subsequently given a €5m loan by Fifa, later written off, in return for not contesting the decision, but the pain still lingers.

I don’t think it will have any influence for either team,” French coach Didier Deschamps said. “Seeking revenge is not something you do in top-level football, especially after so many years have gone by. This is a new story for both teams. I will not use it and I don’t think my Ireland counterpart Martin O’Neill will either.”

That was not strictly true. “It is absolutely (extra motivation), but we've got all the motivation in the world here regardless of that,” said O'Neill. “We've got a side that are prepared and actually love playing for their country and that's very, very important. It's a driving force."

O’Neill was more exercised by the imbalance in ticket allocation for the game, in Lyon’s 60,000-capacity stadium, for which the prize is a quarter-final against Iceland or England.

"I think that the ticket allocation is something that I do have a gripe about," he said. "I think it's totally disproportionate for a stadium of this size and this brilliance for us or any team playing in the Round of 16 here to be allocated less than 5,000 tickets. I think it's pretty unfair really. I think it's totally disproportionate."

The Irish fans have won many friends in France and doubtless many more than 5,000 will find a way to follow their team, but, inevitably the hosts wll have much larger support - if not necessarily noisier.

Hugo Lloris, one of the few players involved who also played in Paris, said: "I don't know if the Irish are necessarily out for revenge. That's part of history, that's in the past.” Instead, the French captain and Tottenham goalkeeper suggested, they would have other motivation.

”We have noticed since the start of the tournament, we are a little bit the team to beat. That does give the opposition added motivation to try and bring down the host nation. That is no doubt going to be another aim for the Irish, but we're not focussed on that at all, we're preparing very calmly on our side of things and tomorrow we need to make sure that we are ready for the battle."

Ireland qualified by beating Italy - albeit an understrength, half-interested Italy, and O’Neill’s assistant Roy Keane said he thought they could trouble the French. "They will be red-hot favourites but I'd like to think every time we get the ball in the box their fans will be nervous wrecks,” he said.

France played last played on Sunday and will have had three more days to prepare than Ireland, a factor which may be even more significant given the afternoon kick-off and warm forecast.

Ireland, though, can be expected to run until they can run no more. "They've got a lot of heart, they work hard,” said French coach Didier Deschamps, but, he added, “it's not just that. There are some good footballers within the team. The large majority of them play in the Premier League, they are used to playing against the top English sides.

Deschamps is likely to field the team who beat Romania in the opening game, with Olivier Giroud supported by Antoine Griezmann and Dimitri Payet.