Don’t expect to see Thierry Henry smiling on the soccer field these days.
With Arsenal about to say farewell to their Premier League title, the French striker has a moody demeanour, even when he’s stroking the ball into the net.
Instead of waving his arms and grinning from ear to ear, Henry tends to jog quietly away, take the applause of the crowd and teammates and go to say thanks to the player who provided the pass.
It has become something of a tiresome ritual. But Henry explains that he’s not trying to be irritating.
”If you ask the guys in the dressing room, they’ll say I’m always laughing,” Henry said on the eve of Arsenal’s Champions League game against Bayern Munich on Wednesday. ”If I’m on the pitch you don’t often see my teeth.”
Henry puts it down to his strong feelings of self-criticism and his yearning to get better. As a two-time runner up in the poll for Fifa world player of the year, he still has some work to do.
”You can always progress but no one can ever be the best. To me, the best is a bit difficult to define,” said Henry, who tops the Premier League scorers’ list with 22 goals this season but has been less productive in the Champions League.
”That’s why you can always trying to improve. To reach it is practically impossible, apart from Michael Jordan in basketball.”
Henry, who played a major part in Arsenal’s unbeaten Premier League triumph last season, was philosophical as he faced up to turning around Bayern’s 3-1 first-leg advantage.
He knows that, despite the Gunners’ impressive history of 13 league championships and nine FA Cups, the Champions League — formerly known as the European Cup — has stayed well out of reach.
Arsenal have never even reached the final.
”It’s the only thing I don’t have in my locker, so it’s a bit frustrating,” said Henry, who also failed to win the title with Monaco and Juventus before he moved to Highbury six seasons ago.
He believes he can still win the title with Arsenal, even if it’s not this season, but he admits to becoming a little more critical, of both himself and his teammates.
”I’m never satisfied with myself,” he said. ”All the time when I finish the game, the thing that I bring back home, when I’m in my house, I always think of the things I didn’t do well. So, I kind of have doubts in my mind all the time.
”Everyone always turns on the big players when things aren’t going well, and that’s not normal. If you want, after the game against Bayern, if we don’t win you can blame it on me, I’ll take it.”
Henry, whose goals are more likely to be the result of standout play rather than scrambles, says he revels on high-quality moves and thrives on outplaying opponents. But he doesn’t have the arrogant streak some of his critics accuse him of showing.
”When I’m on the pitch, I’m not there to have any laughs. I’m there to play,” he said.
”People say about my attitude, my body language, I know sometimes I can be a pain when it’s like that. It’s just because I want to win. Sometimes it looks bad on TV because it looks like I’m having a go at a guy.
”Even when someone always talks about goals, I’m not greedy,” Henry said. ”When I arrive in front of the net, I always try to play what the game is asking me to do. Sometimes when it doesn’t happen, it can be a pain. Sometimes it kills me when the game is not played how it should be played and it does my head in.
”I think you can see when I’m upset. It’s just the way I am. Everything I do has to be done well. More often it is because I’m upset with myself. When I’m on the pitch and my team is struggling and I know there is expectation on me, I’m a bit upset with myself because I know when I’m on a good day, I can help the team really well.”
Despite his own mesmeric skills, Henry says he’s a big believer in the ethic of the team being far bigger than the player.
”It’s a team game, it’s not a one-man show,” he said of his Arsenal teammates. ”Without my team, I’m nothing.
”I hate it when strikers, when people give them a goal and they go on the other side to celebrate like they did something amazing. Make sure you go back and you say thank you to your teammates. That’s what I do.
”Sometimes it comes across like I’m not happy. The most important thing for me is go back and say thank you to my teammates.” — Sapa-AP