Iconic Moments in Football No.18
Thierry Henry and Robert Pires were both left red-faced after today’s iconic moment back in October 2005.
Arsenal were winning 1-0 in the first half against Manchester City when they were awarded their second penalty of the game.
Robert Pires had scored the earlier kick and stepped up to take this one. As he ran up to strike the ball, Thierry Henry ran inside the box alongside him. Pires went to pass the ball to him but only lightly touched it. The two Frenchmen stood over the ball perplexed as Henry expected Pires to have rolled the ball to him and Pires had touched the ball already and so couldn’t touch it again!
City’s Sylvain Distin raced in and cleared the ball away from danger and play briefly resumed with the Highbury crowd in a real state of bemusement, wondering what had just happened or went wrong.
Mike Riley the referee quickly called play back and gave an indirect free kick after he believed Pires had touched the ball twice. In fact, Pires had only touched the ball once and Henry could have had a shot at goal but everything went awry in the confusion that followed!
After the game it was revealed that Pires and Henry had tried to replicate a penalty routine that Johann Cruyff and Jesper Olsen successfully scored for Ajax in 1982. Instead, they were left looking rather embarrassed.
Henry told the press “I take all the blame, it was my idea. If it had worked it would have been a brilliant idea, but it did not work”.
Pires later said of the incident: “It was Thierry Henry’s idea and of course it was my mistake, because I missed the ball. I regret the pass but not the penalty. It was a good idea, the people need to watch something new and the penalty between me and Thierry was a new thing.”
The penalty routine was well within the laws of the game which state:
- The player taking the penalty kicks the ball forward
- He does not play the ball a second time until it has touched another player
- The ball is in play when it is kicked and moved forward
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