How Thierry Henry became in two months the most exciting consultant of the L1

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“It’s-a-mistake-y’a-pe-nal-ty, manage your control”. Invited to comment on Botman’s hand fault during the northern derby this weekend, Thierry Henry again offered us a nice moment of tele-popcorn. One more mythical sequence to add to the YouTube compilation of the new Prime Video consultant, whose first appearance at the end of August at the Auguste-Delaune stadium may however remain unchallenged for a while.

That evening, as cameras around the world track down the petite figure of Leo Messi for his big debut in L1 from everywhere, the players have eyes only for this big carcass, suit cut to the nines. and British elegance, on the edge of the lawn. In full warm-up with PSG, therefore, Kylian Mbappé sees the former Gunner at the edge of the field and immediately stops his warm-up to come and greet him.

Located a few meters away, the new press attaché for the Stade de Reims remembers. “He stopped everything suddenly to come and check him!” And behind you have Neymar who does the same. In addition it was a real exercise, like pass control, not a little quiet jog, says Jérémy Puzos. And it is not him who moves, be careful! He is on his desk, he does not move, and it is the players who come to him, it is quite lunar. All the spotlight was on him as it was Messi’s world premiere at PSG. Me, personally, I had never seen that in France before ”.

The man who arranged the Twittos

This scene says everything about the phenomenon represented by the arrival of Thierry Henry in Ligue 1 this season. From players and coaches to supporters and journalists, we challenge you to find someone who is not already won over by the profession’s new GOAT. For his part, if he has been able to nourish over the years a certain resentment towards France, especially after his goal of the hand against Ireland in qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, the former scorer seems happy to find his country.

This is what he told it on Monday to our colleagues from Parisian : “Apart from my brief stint as a trainer in Monaco, it’s been a very long time since I left France, since I lost this proximity with L1 and the public. This role of consultant at Amazon allows me to redo my journey and relive certain emotions. On the contrary, the public who could find him sometimes haughty in his way of being or of speaking, is discovering a new facet of the character. A free tone, well-felt punchlines, a charisma to make Mélenchon pass for a vulgar party hall speaker and, above all, extremely accurate analyzes, this is Henry 2.0.

But if the general public seems to discover the talents of the consultant Henry, Smaïl Bouabdellah, the Amazon presenter who rubs shoulders with the character every week, did not fall from his chair when he saw him at work:

“When you see his CV as a consultant in England, you tell yourself that he already has the codes and quite a bit of experience. You have players who have had immense careers but who are not consultants to the height of them. But with Thierry, it only takes 15 seconds to know what it will be like. When he receives the pre-match lineup, he’ll tell you “No, but the full-back, the last two times he didn’t play like, and then he evolved in such and such a field compared to last season . ” You say to yourself “Well, ok, the guy worked!” “

And if in England some specialists found it too much in his comments, especially vis-à-vis players more modest than him – and it was also sometimes the case during his confs when he coached Monaco -, Thierry Henry seems to have corrected the shooting this year. “He’s speaking more calmly now. Maybe his managerial experience has changed him a bit, who knows. It’s a very difficult job and he may have had to deal with people who just don’t see the sport like him, ”said Barney Ronay, journalist at Guardian, To The team early September.

A football bulimic who is always one step ahead

If he is not (yet?) At the level of Mathieu Bodmer, another Amazon consultant who can recite from memory the lines of the Guingamp-Martigues match of July 19, 1995, the former Barcelona, ​​already known during his premiere career to get 50 games a week on TV, defends himself at Trivial football. “On the high level, on the players of the five or six major European championships, he knows everyone! After, if with Belgium he played Kazakhstan and he liked the right side, he will come to see you and tell you “there is a Kazakh side who plays in Romanian D2, follow him, we will hear about it from him “. But because he has the eye ”, continues the presenter of Prime Video.

Among the players little known to the general public who appear on his love-list, one of them was even entitled to the honors of the boss after the Reims-PSG match. A sequence, again, which has turned a lot on social networks in recent weeks. We see the young Ilan Kebbal, 23, looking and listening with the eyes of love Henry braid him praise.

“Ilan, you feel he’s moved, he wonders if it’s not too many compliments from such a player, but because he’s a humble guy. I know it’s something that gave him great pleasure, says the press secretary from Reims. In addition, the story is beautiful because last year he was in Ligue 2 at Dunkirk, the season before he was in National. And there you are complimented by one of the greatest strikers in history, during a match against PSG! He’s a guy who comes from afar and I think when Henry tells him that, he also reviews how far he has come to get there. “

“Thierry is Keyser Söze! “

Scenes like this, Prime Video’s Twitter account already has full cases. Like this interview with Franck Haise, the coach of RC Lens, also with stars in his eyes when Henry declares his love for the game of Blood and Gold. field, but in fact it is all the players and the coaches who look at the plateau, hoping that Thierry will call them to discuss a few minutes ”, Bouabdellah laughs.

“It reminds me of the interview with Ganago after Monaco-Lens, he shifts. He had scored, Thierry talks to him a little, tac, he leaves to do an interview with another media but before leaving, Ganago takes out his phone and asks the guy from the Lens com ‘you “You can take a picture of me with Thierry Henry please “. I think it’s great. “

When we ask the former presenter of beIN how he explains this almost Christlike aura, Bouabdellah evokes, beyond the prize list and hundreds of pawns, “Thierry’s unfailing passion for football”. For references, on the other hand, it is better to be born in the previous century, because Henry often appeals to the players of his time, as when he compared the magnificent goal of Nantes Kolo Muani against Angers to those that could slam his former teammate of Arsenal. Nwanko Kanu.

“It’s true that it quickly switches to the football of the 90s and 2000s!” Laughs the journalist. If you talk to him about Nantes, he will quickly switch to Japhet Ndoram, in Monaco he will tell you “Victor Ikpeba he controlled the ball in this way”. In fact when you speak with him in private, you will talk about football of the 90s, films of the 90s, series of the 90s. The last time we talked about Usual Suspects, well here it is, Thierry is Keyser Söze (laughs)! “.


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