On the pitch, he was a formidable attacker. Able to invent improbable gestures, always with an eye for efficiency. At 46, Thierry Henry, now a coach, has lost none of his ability to surprise. In a long interview with L’Équipe, the 1998 world champion speaks with passion about his job, his hopes and his desires. Like a perpetual quest for perfection. Starting with the mission entrusted to him and which involves the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in less than a year.
“There is a nuance between the objective set and what I want. My dream is gold. I told the president. Now how? That’s another debate. I don’t dream of finishing second. Afterwards, you have to be able to achieve it. And to achieve it, it’s important to visualize it. So you have to visualize the gold. »
An ambition that he will perhaps achieve with Kylian Mbappé? “I didn’t talk to Kylian about all that,” explains Thierry Henry. Although, like everyone else, I heard that he would like to do them. »
To achieve this, we will also have to juggle Euro 2024 which will be held a few weeks before the Olympics. And that poses no problem for the former Gunner: “In my head, we’re all here for the A’s. So if he wants to take my whole team, he takes. And my goals will remain the same. Clairefontaine, what was it made for? For the A. When I arrived here as a kid, they told us: “Guys, we hope to find you in A.” So Didier is the boss. Even if he wants to take my staff, he takes it. »
“Now, watch out, I’m evolving”
However, Thierry Henry does not yet want to look further into the subject: “I, coach of the under-21 team, cannot talk about the Olympics, it is a lack of respect for the generation which is here today, because I don’t know who will be part of the under-23s. They are two different teams. And I am a coach of both. It’s as if after a match with the French team someone came to talk to me about Arsenal. There, we will play against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Cyprus. When the preparations for the Olympics arrive, in March, my speech will be different, of course. »
Among the criticisms made of Thierry Henry coach, the one that often comes up is that of the former great player who does not know how to adapt to the weaker level of his players. “At 17 I was already like that, I couldn’t understand, and yet I wasn’t yet a great player. I’m just like that, I’ve always had it in me. Now, watch out, I’m evolving. I always assume that the guy doesn’t know how to do it, because that allows me to work on myself, in fact. But afterward it is the players who play, and who make choices. »
In this, he assures that his past as a great player does not help him in his duties as coach: “It doesn’t matter if you have fifteen years of career, or fifteen seconds; it doesn’t matter if you have the players or if you don’t have the players; it doesn’t matter if there is Covid or not… At some point, you have to have results. My career precedes me, OK, but it doesn’t help me. »
