Thierry Henry will face a familiar foe when he takes to the pitch for the first time in a New York Red Bulls uniform on Thursday night.
The former Barcelona and Arsenal striker will face Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal’s north London rivals.
"What a script, right?" Henry explained to the Newark Star-Ledger. "The first game against Tottenham. I didn’t even know because it wasn’t planned that long ago so, yeah, Tottenham. What am I to do?"
The former France international left Arsenal in 2007 to join Barcelona but he is the all-time leading scorer in Premiership history after scoring 228 goals in 390 appearances as a Gunner.
"Playing Tottenham is always a special thing for a guy who played for Arsenal," Henry told the paper.
"It is a special game for me. It’s such a big rivalry. I don’t expect anything less or more than getting some stick, but I dealt with that for eight years. I don’t think it’s going to be an easy game for us."
Red Bulls coach Hans Backe said Henry will start against Spurs but will not see action in second half as he needs to get in game shape after having limited practice time since joining up with the club last week. Henry hasn’t played a competitive match since France was eliminated from the World Cup by South Africa a month ago.
“It would be stupid to force it now because he is doing so much extra work after each training session,” Backe told the New York Daily News. “It would be stupid to get a hamstring (injury). Take the time, get top ready for the Houston game.”
Henry met his new squad on Friday so he may not be in sync with his teammates but he was pleased to meet the squad.
“You don’t even know how happy I am,” Henry said after his first brief practice. “I was so happy to come here and finally get to see my teammates. Obviously in the past two days I’ve been doing a lot of stuff, the presentation, some (television) shows, but I came here to play so I was so in a rush to meet the guys.”