In fairness Henry has been unlucky at the big finals - CL, team down to 10 men, v. isolated; WC - down to 10 men, Zidane gone insane, manager is a fuckwit, whereas Ballack was lucky to be on the pitch at the end of the recent final.
Yeah, that's where the manager comes in as Italy were sitting back but, following Domenech style management instructions, so were the French defence leaving a 6 vs 10 sort of game. Difficult to make an impact there.
I seem to remember France being significantly more attack-minded than Italy for most of the 2006 World Cup final.
In the Champions League final, Henry had already missed one very easy chance before Lehmann got ordered off.
He was a player of incredible talent in his heyday, and for him to not score even once in a final suggests he has some sort of mental block about these types of games.
It's the same in any sport. Some guy that isn't that good doing incredible in Finals (Claude Lemieux in hockey, Kirk Gibson in baseball, etc,) and superstars doing bad (Wilt Chamberlain in basketball, Dave Winfield in baseball, etc.)
When you're expected to tear it up like you have in previous games, and both heads of states are at the game along with all of the bigwigs of FIFA and Pele and Shakira and Wyclef are shaking their respective asses before the match and there's a few billion watching it who will judge you for the rest of your life based on your performance, it may be too much to handle.
A good question would be if Fernando Torres has accomplished more in this game than Henry has in his entire career. I'd say no, but with one memorable goal he may very well have.
not scoring in finals isn't enough on its own though. As the main attacking threat of a team you might be double and treble marked and have the shit kicked out of you. Under those circumstances your contribution might be that you drag your opponents out of position and make space for your teammates to try and do the damage.
Henry's problems on the pitch in a final often appear to be more to do with him than his opponents though. Those two relatively easy chances that he wasted in the CL final leading to that hilarious strop, or the performance against Italy a couple of weeks ago being a prime example.
hadn't henry been substituted in the world cup final by the time zidane was sent off? he had played the entire world cup with some kind of injury.
thinking back over henry's finals, his most surprising failure to score was in 2003 against southampton, when as i recall he nearly scored twice in the first couple of minutes. i agree with loose cannon that he's been unlucky though. AIATL unkindly describes the CL final chances as easy - the first one was, the second one definitely wasn't, though i accept it was the kind of chance we've all seen him score.
i was at two confederations cup games in 2003, and the mass hero-worship of thierry henry when he came out to warm up on the sidelines at st etienne is still among my most memorable moments watching football.
He had a pretty good game in the Euro 2000 final even though he didn't find the target.
But the second opportunity against Barcelona, you know and I know that if Henry had been given that exact same chance against Wigan on a Saturday afternoon, or Sparta Prague on a Wednesday evening, he would have lashed it low into the far corner without even thinking.
Not Wigan (singular) but the Wigans(plural) apparently.
Sorry but I hate the wanton pluralisation that has infected football (the David Beckhams, the Manchester Uniteds, the Barcelonas, etc), and don't get me started on 'ask' as a noun.
Henry played well against Barca I thought, stuck up front on his own with his team down to 10 men, doing a lot thankless work holding the ball up. I remember him going down the line taking on a few players when he had no right to and then having nobody to pass to, so had to end up shooting instead. If that's the chance people are saying he missed then they are being needlessly harsh.
You're almost certainly thinking of a different incident where he went on a great run down the flank, beat a couple of Barcelona players, and then just overran the ball a little bit and it ended up in Valdes' hands. I think that was in the first half.
Bryantop - that post sums up Henry in the France Italy game too.
He may as well retire from international footie now as Domenech is unlikely to change his tactics and Henry will be doomed to taking the ball down the wing and being frustrated at finding no-one to pass to. A football equivalent of Sisyphus.
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