As Thierry Henry accepted an award for Lionel Messi at FIFA’s The Best presentation, he couldn’t help but make a less-than-subtle jab at Spurs.
The 46-year-old, who scored 228 goals in 377 games for the Gunners, accepted Messi’s FIFA Best Men’s Player trophy on behalf of the Argentine, defeating Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to win it.
Via FIFA’s website, a diverse group of national team captains, journalists, coaches, and supporters cast their votes to determine who performed the best between December 19, 2022, and August 20, 2023.
Fans and captains of the national team voted for Messi, who had just won the Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint-Germain, but journalists and coaches selected Erling Haaland.
But in a vote tie-break, the Norwegian lost out even though he had the same number of votes as Messi. Essentially, captain voting for the national team decided the outcome because the two players were tied on points.
Messi received the support of all four of the leaders of the home team: Jonny Evans, Aaron Ramsey, Andy Robertson, and Harry Kane.
Following the announcement that Messi would be adding another trophy to his already extensive collection, Thierry Henry, a former colleague from Barcelona, took the stage to accept the honor.
After accepting The Best award, he stated the following to host Reshmin Chowdhury. “You’re a Spurs fan and you don’t usually get your hands on a trophy so, I’ll take this one.”
The audience laughed at Henry’s joke, and the video quickly went viral on social media.
The incident can be seen below:
Naturally, Messi played with Henry during his fruitful three-year tenure at Barcelona. On one occasion, the Frenchman shared a glimpse into what it was like to play with the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner.
“You need to, at a particular moment, take your f’ing ego on the side,” Henry said. “Whatever you did before or you didn’t do, when you arrive at Barcelona, you didn’t win anything.”
“We’re going to run for this guy and this guy, on top of everything, scores four every game,” he continued.
“What people do not understand sometimes in big teams; big players, big competitors, important players are willing to do whatever needs to be done to win.”
