The fire and flair we've lost: Arsenal v Man United
Thierry Henry was playing streetball. He was grinning, spinning, slaloming through opponents, stopping and starting and gliding and darting. He was doing … back-pedal step-overs? Who even knew they existed? Or did he just invent them?
We posted the old clip on Instagram last week, and it got a big reception. Those old JOGA TV ads from Nike — Joga Bonito and all that — were like the rhythm of life for young football fans like me in the 2000s. I even had the trademark white-and-gold ball, which I’d kick against the wall for hours as I waited for summer to turn to fall and for the new season to start.
Surely, some of the warm welcome for the clip was just raw nostalgia. But there was also something more to it.
“Play beautiful. Oh god, if this energy comes back, I’ll follow football again.”
“Football is dead now in comparison. Pull off a roulette on the ball or a flip-flap and the manager would probably sub you for not passing to the CDM 😭”
“Best era ever. Back when player freedom, magic and unpredictability were the norm and encouraged and not every team played the same tactics.”
“I remember watching this as a kid and being completely blown away by those reversed stepovers going backwards. And I still am. How did you do that, Titi?!?”
“Another Legend introducing a younger one. Was Henry I watched doing the look one way & pass with opposite foot during a warmup.”
These are all comments, and they’ve all got a theme. I try not to be a nostalgia merchant, and I try not to hammer the present day too much. I tend to think things are not that bad. But there’s no denying things have changed, and Thierry Henry is a sort of cypher for the revolution.
Back then, the Frenchman was often praised for his terrifying pace and ferocious finishing, his ruthless effectiveness. But he was also an inventor and a sorcerer, erupting in bursts of magic and silky skills, a juggler and illusionist as well as a sprinter and an assassin. For some reason, that side was less talked about1, but it’s the side the commenters above couldn’t get out of their minds. Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder, and now that the trequartistas and tricksters are gone and everyone’s a giant who runs 14 miles a game, it’s easier to see that when Riquelme and Ronaldinho roamed the Earth — well, the pitch — we had it made. Maybe we didn’t appreciate it enough at the time.
One of Henry’s most gloriously inventive moments was that flick-up and volley against Manchester United at Highbury, when he received the ball with his back to goal outside the 18-yard box, swivelled, and called in an airstrike on Fabien Barthez’s goal. Who could even have conceived of it before it happened? And he did it all in one moment. There’s that common term for a rare thing: Genius.
Arsenal will host Manchester United once again this weekend, this time at the Emirates Stadium, and few of us foresee a goal of that caliber — or much flair at all — on the agenda. But we might sense something else missing, too.
The genuine animosity of those Arsenal-United encounters back in the day is gone now as well. The real hatred, the resentment, the constant cycle of revenge-and-counterpunch, the feeling that this was all personal. That’s gone, too, in the highly professionalized game of today. Sure, these two haven’t competed for the title against one another since those 2000s days, but the marquee title rivalry of the latter Premier League — Manchester City vs Liverpool — was also overwhelmingly bloodless. Outbursts of genuine rage, like at the end of Chelsea and Arsenal’s League Cup semifinal first leg last week, are rare and fleeting.
Depending on your viewpoint, that might be a good thing. But it’s another thing, like the drift away from flair and individuality and self-expression towards physicality and tactical schemes and efficiency, that drags the game further from the street and the playground and the back alley. The Roy Keane-Patrick Vieira spats were, in a way, beloved by the watching football world, because there was something relatable in the beef. It was recognizable from the smaller football lives many of us have lived, the big moments we remember from ultimately tiny games, the spike print on your ankle that requires an answer.
The drift towards physicality and away from interpersonal conflict —and, let’s be honest, ugly violence — have occurred simultaneously.2 It’s perplexing, but more than that, it’s been disenchanting for many. They simply find the modern game harder to connect to, because it contains fewer of the elements they might recognize from their own streetball days. Does no one want to pull off a sublime and unpredictable bit of skill, something the world has never seen before? Or is it that their managers won’t let them? And failing all that, doesn’t anybody want to kick someone anymore?
Maybe we’re in for a surprise on Sunday when Arsenal and Manchester United take the field once more. They’re both coached by ex-players who remember the tail end of the time when this match was war. Mikel Arteta in particular will want to avoid any funny business and just secure a result — Arsenal have far more to lose. But if his side can get the upper hand, it would be nice to see one of his players attempt something that Grandpa Cantona — the wizened elder of the sorcerer’s game — might approve of.
It was, after all, King Eric who brought Thierry to the blacktop in that legendary Nike ad. He was the ultimate individualist, but the game has since moved on and made a lot more money in the process. Maybe they don’t have to worry about what any of us want to see. They know we’ll be tuning in either way.
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A few more matches worth your time this weekend…
ON SATURDAY, you can kick off with WEST HAM vs SUNDERLAND to see whether the Black Cats will head down to London and (pretty much) secure their place in the Premier League next season. They’re already 16 points clear of the Hammers, whom they could push further towards the relegation trapdoor with a win here.
Then you’ve got FULHAM vs BRIGHTON in a potentially lively meeting of the Premier League’s middle class, and you can finish out the English bit of the program with BOURNEMOUTH vs LIVERPOOL. Arne Slot’s fortunes have improved just a bit in recent weeks, but his seat is still very hot on Merseyside and this trip down to the South Coast will be a test.
Finally, there’s a Top Four clash in La Liga between VILLAREAL and REAL MADRID. The knives are out in the Spanish capital, and they could grow sharper still if new coach Álvaro Arbeloa struggles again in this meeting of second and third in the table. Or, if you’d like to keep an eye on the table-topping cinderella story in France, MARSEILLE vs LENS kicks off five minutes later.
ON SUNDAY, there could be a very spicy atmosphere at Selhurst Park as CRYSTAL PALACE vs CHELSEA goes down with the home team in turmoil. Players and coaches are leaving in droves, and Palace leadership will just be hoping they don’t lose the fans completely. Or, if you’d rather see two Champions League yo-yo clubs duke it out, there’s NEWCASTLE vs ASTON VILLA on at the same time.
Then there’s a massive match in the Scottish title race: HEARTS vs CELTIC, with the defending champions visiting the league leaders in Edinburgh. Shockingly, the Hoops are six points behind and at risk of being cut adrift if they can’t make up ground here.
That’s 90 minutes before ARSENAL vs MANCHESTER UNITED, which is followed by two big games out of Italy: JUVENTUS vs NAPOLI, which is fifth hosting third, and fourth hosting second with ROMA vs MILAN. That’s a tasty Sunday.
Maybe the English football commentariat always undervalued it. Even in the retrospectives, how often do you hear his former opponents mention the artistry?
My own view is that Chelsea and Manchester City have a lot to answer for on this. It was José Mourinho’s Chelsea teams that brought raw physicality to bear in the latter 2000s and shoved Arsène Wenger’s effete tacticians out of the top-table conversation. (Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United managed the balance better and weathered the storm.) A decade or so later, Pep Guardiola’s Man City machine brought a new kind of cold calculation and bloodlessness to elite English football.
Who could even have conceived of it before it happened?
Frank Worthington conceived something very much like that. Check him playing for Bolton against Ipswich.