Thierry Henry stormed off the CBS Sports set during an interview segment before of Arsenal’s Champions League showdown with Real Madrid.
The Gunners meet the 15-time European winners in the winners League quarter-final first leg at the Emirates Stadium and Henry is present to see the enticing game.
He was interviewed in the build-up as part of CBS Sports’ broadcast and joined by his former Arsenal and France colleague Robert Pires.
The two reminisced about the fantastic times they had under Arsene Wenger, winning the Premier League without losing a game but then one memorable event was brought up by presenter Anita Jones.
Henry rolled his eyes before the question had even been posed and then remarked “Wait I’m going to leave you alone because he [Pires] messed it up” before walking off-camera.
The statement caused gasps from Jamie Carragher and Micah Richards in the studio.
They were of course referring about Henry and Pires’ missed penalty effort against Manchester City back in 2005 and the latter claimed he was guilty for the awful execution.
“It was my fault, it was my mistake yeah,” Pires remarked, before adding that the referee for the game was uninformed of the regulations.
Footage of the event shown and Henry did soon return to affirm that the concept for the penalty routine was his but had to get it in that he “didn’t make the mistake”.
Pires had planned to pass the penalty to Henry but did not receive the touch he desired, resulting to City obtaining a free-kick after defender Danny Mills gave him all sorts of insults for what he regarded to be showboating.
The sequence was developed by Johan Cruyff and Jesper Olsen at Ajax and years later Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez showed how to perform it well for Barcelona.
Henry praises Pires as a “special player”
After Henry had done criticising Pires for getting the penalty wrong, he did shower his old comrade with admiration for everything he achieved for club and country.
“Joking aside, I need to say something about this dude. Despite the fact that we have been joking and laughing, this individual was a really strong player. Being able to play with him at Arsenal and for the national team was an incredible experience.
There is one thing that you guys are aware of, and that is that if you are in training with Robert Pires, you will never finish in last place.
“The application that he had every time in training and the technique that he had, Robert could still play football now – only the pitch is a bit too big.”
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