Despite the globalisation of the world game, there are still some notable differences between Italian and English views on football.
One example is perhaps how some in the peninsula remember the recently retired Thierry Henry.
Critics and fans can still tend to be wary of players they do not see playing regularly, and Paddy Agnew provides a particularly interesting anecdote when discussing this anomaly in Forza Italia: The Fall and Rise of Italian Football.
During a Champions League tie between Arsenal and Roma at the Stadio Olimpico in November 2002, Agnew recalls his astonishment when a Roma stadium steward in the press box came across to ask him “who was the black striker playing for Arsenal.”
Despite then being one of the best-known players in world football, the steward showed that parochial prejudices work on a worldwide basis on a night Henry went on to score a memorable hat-trick with the English Premier League side coming from behind to win 3–1.
The Roma stadium steward must have also not been paying too much attention to what was happening over three hundred miles north of the capital city in Turin over three years earlier when the Frenchman joined Juventus for approximately €11.5 million in January 1999.
1998-99 was a season that many associated with the Old Lady would prefer to forget as Inter-bound Marcello Lippi walked out on the club in mid-February, languishing down in ninth place in the Serie A table after delivering nine major honours in four-and-a half years prior.
Even before Carlo Ancelotti succeeded Lippi, the struggling champions had been forced to spend in order to find a much-needed replacement for injured striker Alessandro Del Piero, out for the rest of the season after badly injuring his knee against Udinese in early November.
Former AC Milan striker Christophe Dugarry turned down a move back to Italy and Turkish forward Hakan Sukur twice returned home without being persuaded to sign, so instead Juve brought in two young potentially world-class attackers in Henry and Juan Esnaider from Espanyol.
Esnsider, who opened the scoring for Real Zaragoza against Arsenal in the 1995 Cup Winners’ Cup Final, would fail to find the net in sixteen Serie A appearances before returning to his comfort zone in Spain in December 2000.
Henry would also appear just sixteen times for the Bianconeri, making his debut as a substitute in a 2–1 win against Perugia, before being reunited with former Monaco coach Arsene Wenger at his “dream club” Arsenal in August 1999 after initially being put off when his asking price doubled following the 1998 World Cup.
The 1996 French Young Player of the Year would later refer to “a lack of respect on the part of Luciano Moggi” as his main reason for leaving Italy after eight months, refusing to move to Udinese on loan so that Juventus could sign the eventual 1998-99 Capocannoniere (Serie A top-scorer), Marcio Amoroso.
But before that unsavoury end to his first move as a professional, Henry would demonstrate the attributes that would make him achieve later legendary status in another game at a rainswept Stadio Olimpico.
Alessio Tacchinardi remembered that superb performance against Sven Goran Eriksson’s Lazio as he paid tribute to his former teammate earlier this week.
“I have beautiful memories of him, a great guy, such good character and spirit and I’ve seen a few. He was an elegant gentleman,” he told TuttoMercatoWeb.
“I still remember that match against Lazio, where he practically decided the championship: scoring two goals and was uncontainable. After that match the Biancocelesti went on to lose the title in favour of AC Milan.”
