| 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
Guardian Newspaper
Wednesday May 17, 2000
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