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Thierry Daniel Henry (born
August 17,
1977 in
Les Ulis,
Essonne,
Paris) (IPA:
/tjɛʀi ɑ̃ʀi/) is a
French
football player and regarded as one of the top players in the world. He
currently plays as a
striker for
the
French national team, and for the English club
Arsenal,
where he is that club's all-time leading scorer in both league matches and all
competitions.
Henry has been nominated twice for the
FIFA World Player of the Year, both times finishing runner-up in 2003 and
2004. Also, he was named by
Pelé as one of the
top 125
greatest living footballers in March
2004.
[1]
He has surpassed
Ian Wright
to take over as Arsenal's all-time leading scorer with over 200 goals for the
club. In 2006, Henry was the first player to score more than twenty goals in
five consecutive seasons (2002 - 2006); winning the
European Golden Boot in 2004 and then sharing it with
Diego
Forlán in 2005.
On 19 May
2006, despite
months of speculation linking him with Spanish club FC Barcelona, he renewed his
contract at Arsenal under a 4-year deal until 2010.[1]
Early career
Thierry Henry trained at the
French Football Federation's academy at
Clairefontaine and played at a youth level for CO Les Ulis (1983-1989), then
Palaiseau (1989-1990), Viry-Châtillon (1990-1992) and FC Versailles (1992-1993).
Henry started his professional career at
AS Monaco
and was given his début in
1994 by then Monaco
manager,
Arsène Wenger at the tender age of 17. Thierry was put on the left wing by
Wenger instead of playing his natural role of
striker
because the striker position was already occupied by
Brazilian
Sonny Anderson.
Juventus career
Having impressed in the
French national team's triumph in the
1998 World Cup, Henry left Monaco and moved to
Italian club
Juventus in January 1999 for £10.7 million. At Juventus, Thierry was made to
play on the wing and in an unfamiliar position he was unable to cope with
Italian defensive discipline, scoring just three goals while starting only 12
games for the
Bianconeri.
Arsenal career
Unsettled in Italy,
he transferred from
Juventus in August
1999 to
Arsenal
for £10.5 million, reuniting with his former manager at Monaco, Wenger. At
Arsenal, Wenger brought Henry back to his familiar role of a striker, where he
has flourished ever since. In the seven seasons he has been at Arsenal, Henry
has been the club's top goalscorer for every single one.
He was made Arsenal captain in the summer of
2005, succeeding
the recently departed
Patrick Vieira. Regarded by many as Arsenal's best player ever, on
October 18,
2005 Henry became
the club's top goalscorer of all time; two goals against
Sparta Prague meant he broke
Ian Wright's
record of 185 first-class goals. On February 1, 2006, he scored a goal against
West Ham, bringing his
league goal tally up to 151 and thus breaking
Cliff
Bastin's Arsenal league goals record. The
2005-06 season also saw him score his 100th league goal at Highbury, a feat
unparallelled in the history of the club, and a unique achievement in the
Premier League. He also contributes a large number of
assists - most
notably 23 in the
2002-03 season - an all-time Premiership record.
On May 7,
2006 Henry scored a
hat-trick
against Wigan Athletic in the club's final game at
Highbury. In an emotionally-charged game that ended with Arsenal securing a
place in next season's Champions League ahead of local rivals
Tottenham Hotspur, the last of Henry's three strikes and the final goal at
the old stadium, was a penalty in front of the North Bank. After scoring the
penalty, Henry knelt down in a final gesture to kiss the Highbury pitch goodbye.
In the
UEFA Champions League 2005-06, Arsenal led the group stages and only
conceded 2 goals leading up to the final in Paris. A strike from Henry gave
Arsenal a 1-0 win on aggregate against Spanish Giants
Real
Madrid in the first knockout round. An assist to Fabregas and a goal knocked
Juventus out of the quarter-finals. Henry met
Barcelona in a star-studded
final in Paris
on May 17,
2006. Although
having taken the early lead, the team lost by 2-1, and Henry attracted harsh
criticism for missing chances to secure the title for Arsenal, being (twice)
denied only by the goalkeeper
Victor Valdes.
Throughout the
2005-06 season Henry was linked with a move to
Barcelona or
Real
Madrid; however he eventually decided to stay with Arsenal, declaring his
loyalty and love for the club and accepting a four-year contract after the
Champions League final
[1].
Henry is currently third in the list of all-time English Premiership goal
scorers, 96 goals behind
Alan
Shearer who is in first place, and 21 goals behind
Andy Cole
in second place.
Arsenal vice-chairman
David Dein
claimed the club turned down two bids of £50 million "from Spanish clubs" for
Thierry Henry before the signing of the new contract. If either of these bids
had been accepted it would have made Henry the most expensive player in the
world - breaking the previous transfer record of £47million paid by Spanish side
Real
Madrid for
Zinedine Zidane in 2001
International career
The Frenchman made his international debut in November
1997 against
South Africa. Four months earlier, he played for the
U-20 French national team in the
1997 FIFA World Youth Championship. He played in France's
1998 FIFA World Cup championship team, on which he was their top-scorer with
three goals. Henry was scheduled to appear in the final -- where France beat
Brazil 3-0 -- as a substitute, but a
red card
forced a defensive change instead. On
Bastille Day 1998,
he was awarded France's highest decoration, the
Légion d'Honneur.
Henry was a member of the
Euro 2000 championship squad, again scoring 3 goals and finishing as
France's top scorer, including the equalizer against
Portugal in the semi-final. France would later win the game in
extra time
thanks to a
penalty
kick by team captain
Zinedine Zidane.
However, the
2002 FIFA World Cup featured a stunning early exit for both Henry and France
as the reigning champions were eliminated in the group stage after failing to
score a goal in any contest. After France lost their first match in group play,
Henry was red carded in their next match against
Uruguay. France played to a 0-0 draw, but Henry was forced to miss the final
match due to suspension which France lost 2-0 to
Denmark.
The next year, Henry would return to form at the
2003 Confederations Cup. France, playing without team stalwarts Zidane and
Patrick Vieira, won in large part to Henry's spectacular play for which he
was named
Man of the Match by FIFA's Technical Study Group in three of France's five
matches. In the final, he scored the
golden
goal in extra time to lift the host country over
Cameroon 1-0. Henry was awarded both the adidas Golden Ball as the
outstanding player of the competition and the adidas Golden Shoe as the
tournament's top goalscorer.[2]
Henry also played in all of France's games in the
Euro 2004 in which the team beat
England in the group stages but lost to the eventual winners
Greece 1-0 in the quarter-finals.
Thierry Henry was one of the automatic starters in the France squad at the
2006 FIFA World Cup. He scored three goals and earned two fouls in two
knockout-round games that proved to be game-winners, including the only goal
against tournament favorite and returning champion
Brazil. France eventually lost to
Italy on penalties 1-1 (5-3) in the final. Henry was substituted at the
107th minute in the second half of extra-time. Henry was one of 10 nominees for
the Golden Ball award for Player of the Tournament.
Family and marriage
On May 27,
2005, Henry
celebrated the birth of his first child, a daughter named Tea Henry. Henry is
married to
English
model Nicole Merry. He lives with his family in
Hampstead,
North
London. Of
Antillean heritage (his father is from
Guadeloupe
and his mother is from
Martinique),
he is fluent in
French,
Creole,
English and
Italian.
""Awards
Henry has received many plaudits and awards. He was runner-up for the
2003 and
2004
FIFA World Player of the Year award while helping Arsenal to an unbeaten
record (26 wins, 12 draws) in the Premiership . He has also won the
Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year three times, the
PFA Players' Player of the Year twice, and the French Player Of The Year on
four occasions - an all-time record. In
2004-05, despite Arsenal being the runners-up in the
Premiership, Henry emerged with the European Golden Boot for the second
consecutive year (albeit sharing it with
Villarreal's Diego Forlan in
2005). He is the
first ever player to retain the award.
Honours
With the French national team:
With
Monaco:
With
Arsenal:
Personal Honours:
Racism incident
Luis Aragonés became Spain's coach in 2004. During a training session with
the national team, a Spanish TV crew caught Aragonés motivating Henry's Arsenal
teammate
José Antonio Reyes in a strange way ("Give him the ball, and then show that
black little shit that you are better than him.") The incident caused an uproar
in the British media with calls for Aragonés to be sacked. When Spain played
England in a
friendly match at the
Bernabéu later that year, the crowd was hostile. Whenever black English
players touched the ball, large segments of the Spanish crowd began to make
"monkey chants."[3][4]
The Spanish football federation -- the
RFEF -- eventually fined the coach €3,000.[5]
After an investigation,
UEFA fined the RFEF
100,000 Swiss francs and warned that future incidents would be punished more
severely, from suspension from major international tournaments or the closure of
Spain's home international matches to supporters.
Henry and Nike
started the
Stand Up Speak Up campaign against football racism as a result of the
incident. He is now part of
Nike's
Joga
Bonito campaign,
Portuguese for "Play beautifully"
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