Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira share the spoils in managerial reunion as 10-man Nice hold Monaco
It was with a certain inevitability that on Wednesday night, a little over 10 years on from the last time they played together with France, the pair found themselves walking across the pitch at Stade Louis II
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Your support makes all the difference.Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry were never going to be apart for long.
As players, they conquered the world with France and became Invincibles under Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, and the parallels don’t stop there. Both started their careers in the south of France (Vieira at Cannes, Henry at Monaco) before moving to major Italian clubs (Vieira to Milan, Henry to Juventus) and then on to Arsenal. There were nine months between their first professional matches, eight months between their international debuts.
The similarities continued even after Vieira left Arsenal for Juventus in 2005 (Henry succeeding him as captain). Both spent time in New York (Vieira as coach of New York City, Henry as a player for New York Red Bulls). Both did their coaching badges in Newport with the Football Association of Wales.
So it was with a certain inevitability that on Wednesday night, a little over 10 years on from the last time they played together with France, the pair found themselves walking across the pitch at Stade Louis II ahead of a Ligue 1 match between Henry’s Monaco and Vieira’s Nice.
“When I saw him coming out of the dressing room, it was bizarre,” Henry confessed. “We went up the steps together. We used to play together and here we were about to play against each other.”
They embraced after the ceremonial pre-match handshakes, but Vieira would not disclose what had been said. “Nothing special,” he said. “We just wished each other good luck and that was it.”
While Vieira has Nice on course for European qualification, the season has not been without its difficulties. Nice are miserly in defence and generally dominate possession, but with Mario Balotelli out of form, out of favour and on the brink of leaving, they are desperately lightweight in attack. Their tally of 15 goals from 20 games is the worst in the division.
A further complication arrived last week with the shock announcement that Jean-Pierre Rivère, the inspirational president who has masterminded Nice’s recent revival, and general manager Julien Fournier are to leave after falling out with the club’s Sino-American majority shareholders over transfer policy.
For now, Vieira can console himself that Nice lie six points off the Champions League places in sixth position. There are no such silver linings for Henry, whose side remain in the relegation zone and are now just a point above bottom club Guingamp.
Monaco have moved to correct the errors of last summer’s transfer window by bringing in proven top-level players this month. Cesc Fàbregas, 36-year-old Brazilian centre-back Naldo and former Lille left-back Fodé Ballo-Touré all impressed in last weekend’s 1-1 draw at Marseille, but having not been registered as Monaco players at the time the fixture against Nice was originally due to be played in December, when it was postponed due to the gilets jaunes protests, they watched from the stands on Wednesday.
Naldo’s absence brought his under-performing compatriot Jemerson back into the starting XI and he was partly at fault for the goal that gave Nice a 30th-minute lead, Allan Saint-Maximin shrugging him off as he raced through to score. Irked by the sloppy manner in which Youssef Aït Bennasser had ceded possession in the build-up, Henry stepped onto the pitch to remonstrate with him and had to be told to return to his technical area by the fourth official.
With Monaco struggling to get the ball off Nice, it would have been a perfect first half for Vieira had a stoppage-time VAR review not upgraded a yellow card shown to Ihsan Sacko for catching Benjamin Henrichs on the shin to a red. Vieira described the decision as “very, very harsh”.
He had further reason to curse technology in the 50th minute when his goalkeeper, Walter Benítez, appeared to have clawed a header from Benoît Badiashile off his goal-line, only for a buzz of referee Benoît Bastien’s watch to grant Monaco an equaliser and give 17-year-old Badiashile his first goal in senior football.
When the technology did work in Nice’s favour, a VAR review supporting Bastien’s decision to penalise Jemerson for a shirt-tug on Youcef Atal inside the Monaco box, Saint-Maximin’s spot-kick was pushed away by Diego Benaglio. Radamel Falcao, on as a late substitute, came within a whisker of winning it for Monaco, but his curler was tipped onto the post by Benítez. Final score: 1-1.
Monaco are still to win a league game in front of their fans this season, yet they are unbeaten in all competitions in 2019. Henry believes they are moving in the right direction and feels the team will regain impetus when Fàbregas, Naldo and Ballo-Touré return for Strasbourg’s visit on Saturday.
“I couldn’t do what I wanted to do before with the team I had,” he said. “You saw in the past three games how I like to play: wingers high and wide, passing the ball on the ground, putting pressure up front. We had a team tonight that might not be the same on Saturday.”
Honours even, then, and quite fittingly. For one evening at least, Vieira and Henry could both be Invincible again.
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