Former Blues striker and current Espoirs coach Thierry Henry claimed to have suffered from depression during his playing career, an illness he links to his childhood and which came to the surface when he was injured during the coronavirus pandemic trained in Canada.
“I lied for a very long time because society wasn’t willing to listen to me,” says the now 46-year-old 1998 world champion in an English interview with the podcast “The Diary of a CEO” published on Monday.
The top goalscorer in Arsenal history says this discomfort has stayed with him throughout the years he has excelled with the ball without even being aware of it.
“Throughout my career and since birth, I must have been depressed,” Henry said. “Did I know that? NO. Have I done anything to fix the problem? NO. But I have adapted to a certain way of life,” he explains.
In life, “you have to put one foot (forward) and then another and walk.” “I've been told that since I was young,” he explains. “I never stopped running,” except during Covid when “I couldn’t do it anymore.” And then it starts to get it.
After retiring from the field in 2014, the former Arsenal star was confined to the height of his health scare while managing the Montreal Impact in the MLS and was separated from his children, who remained in Europe for “a year”.
It then happened to him that he “cried almost every day for no reason,” the current Espoirs coach continued. “The tears came on their own. For what? I don't know, but maybe they had been there for a long time. And added, “Technically it wasn't me, it was my younger self.” (Crying) for everything he didn't have, consent.”
Henry connects his mental fragility to his childhood and the constant search for approval from his father, who often criticized his achievements.
“When I was little, people would always tell me, 'You didn't do that right.' So if you hear that more than anything else, of course it will stay that way,” he says. After scoring all the goals in a 6-0 win as a teenager, he remembers his father telling him not to be happy: “You missed control, you missed that cross.”
This paternal presence “helped the athlete to a certain extent,” but “didn’t help the person that much,” he concludes.