No English club had ever beaten Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. But then again, no Premier League club had ever had a player as good as Thierry Henry before. It was February 2006 and although the memories of the Invincibles were fresh, this was an Arsenal side struggling to recapture those glory days.
Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea had taken a stranglehold on the English game, Liverpool were the Champions League holders and the Gunners faced a fight with Tottenham and Blackburn to finish in the top four. So the trip to see the Galacticos at the Santiago Bernabeu felt like a death sentence, especially when you consider the stinking run of form Arsene Wenger’s side found themselves in.
They’d won just one of their five league matches, had been knocked out of both cup competitions in late January and had injuries to key players to contend with. Both first choice full-backs in Lauren and Ashley Cole were out which saw Mathieu Flamini play at left-back. Real Madrid, who came into this tie on the back of six straight wins, must have been licking their lips at the line-up.
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Although this came at the tail-end of the Galacticos era, the names on the teamsheet still read like something out of the Avengers. Iker Casillas. Sergio Ramos. Roberto Carlos. David Beckham. Guti. Zinedine Zidane. Robinho. Ronaldo. Oh, and Jonathan Woodgate. The expectant packed Bernabeu waited with baited breath to see whether this would be the year they won La Decima.
But then, strolling out into the Spanish capital, came a Frenchman with a level of swagger that would have fit right into the heart of the home dressing room. Instead he was wearing Arsenal yellow, with those dusky grey shorts and socks, sporting the red captain’s armband. The best player in the world.
That image I’ve just described is now so iconic that you can picture it in your mind’s eye at a moment’s notice. Freddie Ljungberg and Robert Pires were still at the club, but Henry was absolutely everything to Arsenal at this stage. The beating heart. The game changer.
On that night in the Bernabeu, he made Madrid’s stars look like Z-list celebrities. He made Sergio Ramos look so silly that it is likely his agent would have been on the phone to Spanish Big Brother while Woodgate escaped back to the sanctuary of the dressing room having picked up an injury early on.
Henry in this mood was unplayable. He was on his own up front, but that didn’t really matter. He could have had the opener as he jumped above Ramos to head wide. His touches were magnificent and he was the driving force of an Arsenal side that dominated the first leg.
Nobody expected them to, but they were all over a stacked Real Madrid side. Then, we come to arguably the most famous goal Henry scored in his entire career. He picked the ball up in the centre circle and shrugged off Ronaldo, before flicking the ball beyond Alvaro Mejia whilst evading the lunge of Guti. In a matter of seconds he was in the Madrid box where with his left foot he beat both Ramos and Casillas with a low drive into the bottom corner. In the days when Champions League football was shown on ITV for free, it was a goal that the whole continent sat up and took notice of. These were the Galacticos, torn apart by the greatest footballer on the planet.
The game was further immortalised by the film ‘Goal II: Living the Dream’, but in reality Real Madrid didn’t have Gavin Harris or Santiago Munez to rescue them. They were handed a 1-0 loss on home soil, their first ever Berbabeu defeat to an English side, and they were dumped out of the competition after a 0-0 at Highbury.
It was Arsenal’s strong defence that carried them all the way to the final against Barcelona - they didn’t concede a goal in the last 16, quarter-final or semi-final - but Henry was simply majestic. He was the best forward in the world and for many the best player in the world across those twelve months.
He came third in the Ballon d’Or that year but it should have been so much better. He helped France reach the World Cup final which they only lost on penalties due to a Zidane headbutt and an unfortunate red card for Jens Lehmann cost him Champions League glory in the final. Two final losses, two heartbreaks, but one incredible player. The best the Premier League has ever seen unforgettably tore apart the Galacticos.
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