FRANCE v BELGIUM

WORLD CUP SEMI-FINAL

THIERRY HENRY has never been slow at coming forward — on or off the field — but the strange thing is that he has only ever given one interview in his role as what the Belgian FA call ‘the second assistant’ to manager Roberto Martinez.

So, not only do we not know what he thinks about today’s World Cup semi-final clash against his native France, we don’t really know what he thinks about his role at all.

Somebody close to him said a couple of weeks ago that Henry was ‘enjoying it’. Whether that remains true during what will be a strange evening for him tonight remains to be seen.

This was always likely to happen, of course. France have long been a superpower of world football — albeit one that has experienced its share of ups and downs — while Belgium have been a coming force for a while. It was only a matter of time before Henry’s two worlds collided in public view.

‘When you go to a club abroad and play one from your own country, you are part of the enemy team,’ said France coach Didier Deschamps yesterday. ‘This time it is much higher. He is on the bench and facing his home nation.

‘But he did know that from the time he became an assistant to (Roberto) Martinez.

‘I am pleased for him to have the job as he is somebody I appreciate.

‘We played as team-mates for France. He jumped on the right train, he did a lot of great things for his club and the national team.

‘But this is a difficult situation, it is not easy for him.’

At Belgium’s neat but under-stated training centre 50 minutes outside of Moscow, there have been plenty of questions about Henry over the last three weeks but not a great deal of interest in answering them. If the former Arsenal centre-forward is Martinez’s secret weapon, then the description is apt in every sense.

Not particularly noticeable during games, Henry is rarely seen next to Martinez or his No 2 Graham Jones in the technical area. At training though, the 40-year-old (below) is more prominent, setting up coaching drills and taking time out to talk through situations with strikers Michy Batshuayi and Romelu Lukaku.

‘I am not the national manager, neither am I the assistant manager,’ Henry said in his solitary interview with the Belgian national broadcaster.

‘I’m the T3, the third coach. From the beginning, I have said that everybody had to keep calm.

‘It’s not the Thierry Henry show; I’m here to help the manager and the squad.

‘The manager is the one who will do the talking, I will try to make the team better. As a coach, you don’t have to mention what you have done as a player in the past. And as a coach I haven’t proven anything.’

Strangely, Henry was not Martinez’s appointment. It was another candidate for the Belgian job — the German Ralf Rangnick — who said he would like to bring Henry with him if he was appointed. Rangnick was ultimately overlooked but his endorsement of Henry had stuck in the right people’s ears and, soon enough, he was part of the supporting cast.

Martinez, once of Everton and Wigan, is phlegmatic enough and shrewd enough to welcome the appointment. Anyway, it is the Spaniard and longterm ally Jones who run the show with Henry decorating the fringes on a relatively modest salary of around £100,000-a-year that he is said to donate to charity.

That is not to say Henry is not valued or useful. Many of the Belgian squad grew up idolising him and, as such, many are said to hang on his every word and instruction.

Martinez signed a new two-year deal as coach before the World Cup — if he wins the thing he may wish he had waited — while Henry has not yet accepted an offer to continue.

Yesterday, Belgium’s Kevin De Bruyne was asked cheekily if he thought Henry may sing the French national anthem tonight.

‘He has not told me what he is going to do,’ shrugged the Manchester City player. ‘But yes, maybe he is going to sing La Marseillaise. That would be normal.

‘For him, this game could be difficult but he is working for us now and he wants us to win. That’s his job. That’s football.’

In France, they feel a little bemused by it all. Deschamps — captain of the national team that won its own World Cup with Henry in it 20 years ago — has previously called his former team-mate’s decision ‘bizarre,’ while Chelsea striker Olivier Giroud said this week that he would like to show ‘Titi that he chose the wrong team’. Giroud should be careful what he wishes for. He is nowhere near the player Henry was and never will be. Tonight at the St Petersburg Stadium, meanwhile, Belgium will start the game as favourites.