When Thierry Henry first arrived at Arsenal on this day in 1999, few would have thought he would go on to become our greatest-ever goalscorer, and the best striker in the world - but things could have been very different.
The year before, the Frenchman found himself at a crossroads in his career - playing as a winger and makeshift wing-back for Juventus. But a chance meeting with Arsène Wenger changed the course of history.
"A few years after Arsène left Monaco, he came to watch a game between Juventus and Udinese that I played in," Henry reflected in 2018. "After the match, I was going back to Paris and he was on the same plane.
"He told me he’d been at the game. We exchanged numbers and he told me that he didn’t understand why I was playing on the wing. At the time, I was actually playing as a wing-back!
"He told me I was wasting my time and that he remembered me as a no. 9. He said it would be great if we could meet him again, and the rest is history."
When Nicolas Anelka left for Real Madrid in August 1999, Wenger moved quickly to bring in Henry. However, short on confidence and self-belief after a tough spell in Turin, Henry went eight games without scoring.
As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about. Henry netted in his ninth game and was scoring at will by the end of the season, but Wenger insists he still would have brought him to north London even if Anelka had remained.
“We would still have signed him because I made him start at Monaco when he was 17 years old,” Wenger said.
“I felt that when I watched him at Juventus that he had lost belief and confidence. I knew he was a very intelligent player and I would still have tried to sign him. Whether we would have had enough money, that is another question!
“Thierry was more able to play on the wings and Anelka was more a central player. I believe as well that they were friends, so they wanted to play together. They come from the same area of Paris, they knew each other when they were very young and they are good friends.
“I think that helps to accommodate both. Thierry played central because Nicolas moved away and I thought I would try to play him central, but at the start when he came he was not supposed to be a centre forward.”
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