Thierry Henry, San Siro and the art of big goals in big games
Arsenal are back at San Siro, back facing Inter Milan again, and for their fans heading out there the memories come flooding back of the many wonders of Thierry Henry. Now giving his opinions on the game for CBS Sports, Henry will always be in Arsenal hearts and minds because of the elegance of so many of his 228 goals in 377 appearances, and also because of one magical night in Milan.
The scenario was simple but challenging: Arsenal really had to win that Champions League game in 2003 to have any hope of reaching the knock-out phase. The odds were stacked against Arsenal: they were missing the injured Patrick Vieira, Martin Keown and Lauren, a fear of flying grounded Dennis Bergkamp again and they had Pascal Cygan at centre-back. Inter, albeit not at their strongest, still boasted Fabio Cannavaro, Marco Materazzi, Javier Zanetti, Obafemi Martins and Christian Vieri. “It could be a testing night,” was the gloomy pay-off to my match preview despatch from Milan in the Telegraph.
How wrong I was. Admittedly, for 20 minutes, Henry was more invisible than future Invincible. And then he took over. Maybe it was the booing from the Inter ultras of a former Juventus player. Outside of painful O-level Latin, one of the first bits of Italian I understood was rivals’ “go f**k yourself” chant about Juve so I caught the drift of the chants towards Henry. Maybe, he knew that without Bergkamp’s guile, and Vieira’s leadership, that he had to take responsibility. Ray Parlour had the armband but Henry soon had the ball and the masterclass began.