By Myles Palmer
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TABLOID PAPERS write rubbish stories and then enhance them with little twists for the next three years.
It’s so boring !
Surely football fans realise that Thierry Henry wouldn’t join Barcelona unless Arsene Wenger was the manager.
Great players need a stage that suits them.
Some find that stage and stay on it and allow great teams to be built and re-built round them.
Di Stefano and Puskas needed Real Madrid.
Dave Mackay needed White Hart Lane.
Eric Cantona was much more suited to Old Trafford than Elland Road.
Ruud Gullut and Marco van Basten were perfect for AC Milan.
Ronaldinho is much more suited to Barcelona than to Paris St Germain.
The Catalan nation loves spectacle and Ronaldinho is the superstar in an exciting team of champions.
That’s why he is contracted there until 2010.
Samuel Eto’o is the right centre forward to play with him, Deco is the right sidekick for him, Puyol is the right captain for him, Messi can learn a lot from him, and Frank Rijkaard is the right manager for him.
Ronaldinho is the franchise.
At Arsenal, Thierry Henry is the franchise.
He is 28 and a Londoner who is married to a Londoner.
He has done a helluva lot for Arsenal and Arsenal has done a helluva lot for him.
He would love to stay and add to his legend in the Emirates Stadium.
Remember, Thierry is a husband and a father as well as a footballer.
He prefers to enjoy a quiet life with a small circle of close friends, rather than go to premieres and parties with a load of tossers and C-list celebs.
He knows that if you have a toddler, or two toddlers, you will need a babysitter, that your young wife will need a group of friends who also have toddlers, and that as your little girl goes to nursery and to school, you tend to become friendly with the parents of your child’s classmates.
Thierry would rather do all that in Hampstead, where he can have more privacy
In Spain, he would not have that. The fans are crazier there, and the media are crazier too.
That is why Thierry will stay at Arsenal and play at the Emirates Stadium. He would not betray his manager, who has made him a world famous multi-millionaire.
ALSO, BARCELONA do not need him.
He plays in Ronaldinho’s position, on the left, getting the ball wide, running at defenders, moving around to attack the penalty area from different angles.
Henry is not Eto’o and never will be.
Eto’o is as direct as an arrow, as we saw when he scored that electrifying first goal against Racing on Sunday night.
Henry could never complement Ronaldinho in the way that Eto’o does because his style would duplicate Ronaldinho too much.
Also, could Barca afford him?
With a year left on his contract, Henry might still cost £15 million.
A four-year contract on £6 million a year would be £24 million.
Can Laporta and his board afford £39 million for one player?
Inevitably, Ronaldinho, a big-hearted diplomat, says he would welcome Thierry.
But, like Thierry, he knows when he is well off.
After winning the Ballon D’Or on Monday night, Ronaldinho said, “Why would I leave? We have everything to become one of the best sides in the world, if not the best. I can win titles here.”
November 30th 2005