Thierry Henry doesn’t see 14 as his number.
Arsenal legend Thierry Henry says he doesn’t really feel 14 is his number, and that he has always favoured the number 12.
The Gunners great wore 14 for most of his Arsenal career, but took 12 in his brief second spell and always wore 12 with the French national team as well.
Speaking to former Arsenal team-mate Cesc Fabregas, Henry revealed he liked 12 because of the legendary Marco van Basten wearing it for Holland during the European Championships in 1988.
Henry admits, however, that he didn’t want to take it off Christopher Wreh (remember him?) when he joined Arsenal, so settled for 14 instead.
“I came back with number 12, that’s my number actually. Fourteen is not my number. I took the number 14 at Arsenal because Christopher Wreh had number 12, so I didn’t want to take it off him,” Henry told Fabregas on Instagram Live, as quoted by the Metro.
“That’s the reason, I didn’t want to take it off him. That’s why when I came back, number 12 because of Marco van Basten at Euro 88.”
Who would’ve thought that would become such an iconic number for us and for him?
Arsenal fans will surely forever associate the number 14 with Henry, one of our greatest ever players and our all-time leading goal-scorer.
It’s genuinely hard to imagine he could’ve worn anything else for us.
I have never understood why any presumably intelligent player can get so worked up about a mere number. Esp a number outside the traditional up to 11 only, there being only 11 players in any team at a time. To make a fuss about 12 or 14, well I just don’t get it, tbh. It is not the important matter at all. And says something about modern players attitude to their craft not being as important as a mere and mostly meaningless number.
IN THE OLD DAYS NUMBERS MEANT A POSITION, SO HAD MEANING , BUT WHEN YOU HAVE NUMBERS UP TO 60 ODD, AS NOWADAYS, IT IS NONSENSE FRANKLY. I SEE IT MAINLY AS VANITY AND AN AFFECTATION.
Psychology still rules the day
I remember him saying years ago that he took number 14 because of Cruyff!