Phenomenal in the Premier League with Arsenal, Thierry Henry would have deserved to win the Ballon d'Or in 2003 and 2004. Arsène Wenger gave a distressing explanation a few years later.
Before Franck Ribéry in 2013 (3rd behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi) or Antoine Griezmann in 2018 (beat ahead of Luka Modric), Thierry Henry also narrowly missed adding his name to the Ballon d'Or list. The Arsenal star striker was exceptional in the Premier League, completely panicking the scorers in the early 2000s, but representatives from Serie A beat him to it: Pavel Nedved in 2003, Andriy Shevchenko in 2004 as well as Fabio Cannavaro in 2006.
Thierry Henry knows that he came very close to joining the French Ballon d'Or elite (with Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin, Zinédine Zidane and Karim Benzema). “Yes, it hurt him. Firstly, he knew he deserved it himself, and I 100% think he deserved it too. The fact that he didn't win it was unjustified.”explained Arsène Wenger in 2012 on the websiteArsenal.com. Before launching:
“At the time, it was still the France Football Ballon d'Or, so maybe they were a little harder on the French players than on the others! »
Thierry Henry narrowly beaten
The conspiracy theory launched by Arsène Wenger 10 years ago is scandalous. France Football probably had no interest in not having a 98 world champion win. But, above all, the newspaper never awarded the Ballon d'Or itself. Foreign journalists have formed the jury for the individual award since the first edition in 1959 (won by the Englishman Stanley Matthews). And in the 2000s, around fifty European journalists gave their top 5 to elect the player of the year. Wenger's comments are unacceptable.
Thierry Henry was unlucky, that's all. In the 2002–03 season, he finished with a PL record of 24 goals and 20 assists (32 goals and 28 assists in total), but Arsenal did not win the title. Pavel Nedved, the star of Juventus, who shone in Champions League against Barça and Real, then obtained more votes. The following year, despite the Arsenal Invincibles season with 30 goals from “TH14”, Andriy Shevchenko was crowned. AC Milan won Serie A, considered the best championship in Europe at the time, with a 24-goal “Sheva”.
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