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Football and Caribbean Food Connection |
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Who is supplying Caribbean Food to Thierry Henry?
(As an avid football fan - in particular an Arsenal supporter, I felt blessed when I discovered this article about a great goal-scorer and a mention of Caribbean food. Editor) By 9.30 tonight Galatasaray could be the latest in a long line of victims wishing Thierry Henry had stuck to his guns. One morning, soon after his arrival at Highbury, the Frenchman dragged himself miserably out of bed intent on demanding a move. This was not a move from Arsenal but from the striker's role he feared was ruining his career. Out of the Champions League side and looking as potent in the Premiership as John Jensen, Henry decided enough was enough. He had to ask Arsène Wenger to go back out wide. "It was so hard at the beginning," he recalls. "Patrick [Vieira] used to tease me all the time. At first it was funny but it was true as well. I missed so many chances, not even difficult ones. In my mind I was in the France squad at the World Cup as a winger and one day I decided I had to speak to the boss. "But when I arrived at training I thought: 'It's all right.' There are players who stop when they have a little problem. I decided I had to keep going and maybe we would see at the end of the season. I had a lot of confidence in Arsène." Presumably the 22-year-old will not be banging on Wenger's door tomorrow, unless it is to demand a pay rise. He has been sensational of late, his pace, power and finishing mocking the early doubts. Goals have flowed like David Ginola's locks. Why the £11m fee? Because he is worth it. Henry remembers the day he started to feel a "real striker" again. As a youngster he always had that sense, 45 goals in one season for Monaco's youth team catapulting him into Wenger's side at 17. But Wenger soon departed and Henry was moved to the wing. Four years later, when he arrived at Highbury from Juventus, the scoring confidence was gone. At home to Derby last November it began to flood back. Twice set up by Marc Overmars, twice he made no mistake. "When you score two goals, and you win with that, suddenly you feel more like a striker," he says. The statistics tell it all: two goals in 17 games before, 22 in 27 since, 26 in all. Here he hopes to score for the 11th successive match. How different Arsenal's Champions League and Premiership fortunes might have been if Henry had been in this form from the start. "No one," he confesses, "has missed the chances I have." The new incisiveness is based not just on confidence but on his adjustment to the Premiership. Team-mates have toughened him up in training and this month Henry even brushed aside Marcel Desailly to score against Chelsea. That prompted Wenger to compare Henry's build to a boxer's but not even he expected His 'Enery to settle this fast. "I didn't expect he would be such a success," says the manager, who originally wanted Henry to play with Nicolas Anelka, not instead of him. "I thought it would need more time. I was disappointed with the way he played at Liverpool alongside Bergkamp. He showed no signs it would be a success. But he learns quickly." The counter-attacking thrust of Anelka is no longer missed. And Henry - outgoing but not arrogant - has become part of the dressing room and the club in a way his friend never did. In the canteen he pulls faces at Vieira, trying to distract the midfielder from his interview. On Friday he watched the under-18s win the Youth Cup. He remembers how much that meant to him at Monaco - small touches, big impression. It says much that a message flashed up at Highbury recently proclaiming "Well done Thierry, only 162 to go". Goals to beat Ian Wright's record, that is. Henry studies Wright on video (the goals not the chat show) and there is a sense that he is here to stay. He enjoys London, though not a in pubbing-kebabing Gazza sort of way. As a teenager at Monaco he ignored the casinos and the beach, and still football comes first. "I go to dance," he says, "but not all the time, you know." More often he is with friends, visitors from Paris, occasionally tucking into the Caribbean food that reminds him of his mother's Guadaloupe cuisine. He appreciates the less intense life on and off the pitch: "In Italy, if you miss one chance, even if you are Batistuta or Bierhoff, they have to kill you. Here they were singing my name." Henry says he likes pressure and not only Arsenal should celebrate his reincarnation. France have surely found the striker they won the World Cup without. Henry may be asked to start alone up front in Euro 2000 but he believes he and Anelka could work as a pair. "Romario and Bebeto used to play together for
Brazil," he says, "and they played the same way." Henry and
Anelka, 22 and 21, may have to vary the baby-cradling celebrations. Tonight
Arsenal would settle for the upraised arm and charge towards the corner
flag. Source: Jon Brodkin in Copenhagen Wednesday May 17, 2000
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