Thierry Henry is Dead and Buried
Now that I got your attention using that outrageous title, let’s talk football. Of course Thierry Henry is a legend so you can put the pitch-forks down and read without itching to get to the comments section to call me a few names that would make your mother clean your mouth with soap. And after which you would be told to take the soap back to the bathroom. And then you would start washing the parts you had called me earlier.
Moving on....
Where football is concerned, we have more haters than fans. We have people who spend more time hating on other teams than supporting their own. People, who go to the club to watch their team, while wearing their team’s football jerseys hidden under a heavy hood. Well, until their team scores. That is when the club turns into a mini Krypton as people unleash the jerseys superman style. Pitiful I tell you. A true team fan is not one who reveals their Jersey when they are winning but one who keeps it on when they are losing. And a true football fan is one who watches good games and appreciates them whether his team is playing or not.
Those are few....
Yesterday was a night for a true football fan. It was after all the return of a legend. Thierry Henry.
Let me first say I am not an arsenal fan. Never have been and never will be. I am a Manchester United fan. But where football is concerned, Henry is a legend and my football affiliations don’t matter in this case. And I could not miss the opportunity to see him one more time and reminisce how much he terrorized defenses anytime he had the ball. That is however not what made him a legend. What made him a legend is his passion for the game and the team he played for. He did not match his Arsenal heroics in Spain and for obvious reasons that you could see yesterday. His heart was somewhere else. He is a gunner at heart and would go to whatever miles to see that team succeed.
And which is what Arsenal has been lacking. They have been lacking players who have the Arsenal logo not just on their Jerseys but stamped across their hearts.
Most people always say Manchester United's team spirit is currently unrivalled in the EPL. It is a team that will win a match with a very average performance and sometimes make comebacks that defy reason. This is what has been lacking at Arsenal and that was highlighted by Henry yesterday. The kind of team spirit that refuses to die in the face of adversity; the glue that stops the cookie from crumbling so to speak. The reaction after he scored was one that made every football fan proud because you could see how much it means to him. How much it means for him to score a goal that mattered to the club at that specific moment, and do so for a club that matters so much to him.
I celebrated with him because you can see it went beyond the goal. It went beyond his powerful strike. It went beyond the players. It was for the entire family of Arsenal. Such a player is rare.
People like Scholes, VDS and Ryan Giggs are legends at Manchester United because people know they were and still are Manchester United at heart. The two still playing don’t have the pace they used to have understandably because of age but the manager knows when they are on the field, they will get the crowd up and the team spirit high. And that is better than an unknown player who’ll run for a better pay-check when push comes to shove.
What Henry personified yesterday is something the youngsters at Arsenal and in the EPL can follow. When your heart belongs in the team, you will find 11 playing like 15. No team can beat you at that point. And that is what will wipe the dust off that trophy cabinet at Arsenal.
