‘Can I even win?’ Thierry Henry waits for a phone call and another shot at coaching

‘Can I even win?’ Thierry Henry waits for a phone call and another shot at coaching

LONDON —  

He was alone, two hours before showtime, the night Manchester City and Real Madrid clashed in the Champions League semifinal. He sat there, anxious — without the shield of the working man’s crimson or the blazing No. 14 kit that made us compare him to the Almighty. But, Thierry Henry wasn’t suiting up tonight. Not to play, anyway. Perhaps that’s why he couldn’t stop pacing the halls of the glossy studios in Stockley Park. Thierry needed to be game-ready, to look at tactics and clear his mind before the lights pop and cameras zoom in on him. Only, for someone billed as the top man around town, it looked like he was suffocating.

Thierry retreated to his green room. He paced around the box. He tugged on his collar, furiously pulling on a delicate almond tie. Before long, he jumped from the chair, turned to me and declared that it was time to get out of his suit.

He asked if I, or the press agent to the right of me, minded. And, before either of us could make sense of what he meant, poof! Thierry sped behind one door of a chifferobe, and in the blink of an eye, he was nearly nude. Both of his arms were fully tattooed, sleeves stretching into his armpits. On his back was London’s skyline, to match the silhouette of New York (his favorite city) on his left arm. The face of one of his children was on his right forearm, the circumference of an office clock. “Vulnerability” was written on one leg, 0:00 on his wrist (to remind him to always reset, even in his darkest moments). It wasn’t just that the 45-year-old looked like he could play again now if he had to, he was showing off. I would say he looked like he’d been lifting.

Not nearly as quickly, he selected his loungewear, settling, eventually, on a tracksuit and skin-tight black shirt. He dropped back into a chair and waited for someone to fetch him a cup of coffee. He was clearly jittery. In the decade since he left the game, after nearly 600 combined appearances for Monaco, Juventus, Arsenal, Barcelona and the New York Red Bulls, you can forgive him if his mind can go anywhere but back to the grass.

A lot of his days have looked like this, being pulled in whichever direction the telly needs him. One night he’s shuffled around the cerulean CBS set as the shining star of its Champions League coverage next to Jamie Carragher, Micah Richards and Kate Abdo. The next he’s calling a game in France or flying to Italy to hug the pitch lines with old foes as he studies the game.

In 30 years of English football in the Premier League, Thierry was the best player in the association’s history. He was a hall of famer who carried a glittering 20-year career full of no-look passes and prized poses; Champions League titles and continent-rearranging runs. Thierry was so popular, companies craved for him to be in Coke and Calvin Klein ads. Once, when he visited Victoria Island in Lagos to watch a game with fans, Nigerians were so moved in his presence they nicknamed him the “Igwe” of goal scoring and honored him with an Isiagu and Igbo crown, a title and clothing typically reserved for special occasions. French stations placed him on the sidelines during the 2001 NBA Finals, armed with a microphone, because they felt like he was the only European alive whom Allen Iverson would recognize. He was as fly as a Frenchman could be, faster than any man in the world who dared to share the pitch with him; perhaps more marvelous than any Black man with the ball I have ever seen.

“To me, the American equivalent was Kobe Bryant,” Abdo told me. “In terms of the cult of popularity and being a pop-culture icon. Thierry has that. You can be a really famous footballer, and never cross over in that way to the culture. And, I think he does. It’s certainly refreshing.”