FRANCE 98 – Henry and Trezeguet: France's dashing new talent
“Right after scoring, David ran around for a few seconds, and then stopped suddenly and closed his eyes. It took a while for it to sink in that he had scored his first World Cup goal” Thierry HENRY (12) says of his friend David TREZEGUET (20), on 19 June at Clairefontaine (south of PARIS). The former is FRANCE’s (Group C) leading goalscorer. The latter did not realise at the time the importance of his 68th minute goal against SAUDI ARABIA, which brought the score up to 2-0. He went on to say, a smile appearing on his face: “I started to run at first, then I stopped and said to myself: this is the World Cup! Have I been dreaming or what?”
Both men came up through the ranks at AS Monaco (French D1) over several seasons. They know each other well and are firm friends. Asked about his teammate strong points, HENRY was bursting with compliments: “David is a tenacious lad who never loses his belief. His positional sense is unbelievable. The ball always comes back to him like an old friend. At first it just seems he’s lucky, but after seeing the ball go where he wants it to time and again, you realise it’s because he’s a born goalscorer. I’m delighted he finally hit the back of the net. It’ll be good for his confidence.”
HENRY and TREZEGUET who are both twenty, love to play together. They are not yet the first choice strike force but rather standing in for Stephane GUIVARC’H (9) and Christophe DUGARRY (21), both injured. “I’m really sorry for Christophe” TREZEGUET says frankly, “but his injury means somebody has to step in and do a job. I want that somebody to be me.” The French Argentinian striker is currently the only central attacker being used by Aimé JACQUET, and he doesn’t intend to give his place up easily: “I was delighted to be chosen among the first 35 players that the coach selected to come to Tignes this winter, then I was happy to be among the last 28 and then the last 22…now I want to be in the starting side.”
HENRY, for his part, is among the tournament’s top scorers having already hit the net three times after only two games–as have the Chilean Marcelo SALAS (11), (Group B), and the Italian Christian VIERI (21), (Group B). In fact, things are just going swimmingly for “Titi” HENRY and “Bati” TREZEGUET. The latter has also confirmed the news that he is rapidly recovering from his ankle sprain.