Cesc Fabregas became a star at Arsenal, but he was a nobody when he first arrived.
The Spaniard joined the Gunners from Barcelona when he was just 16 years of age. He went straight into the first team, which was filled with superstars.
Arsenal had club legends like Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp and Sol Campbell, among others, at the time, so it wouldn’t have been easy for a teenager like Fabregas to come in.
The Como boss has now revealed that he was terrified of one senior player back then.
How do you feel about Cesc Fabregas? Is he an Arsenal legend?
Cesc Fabregas explains why he was ‘scared’ of Thierry Henry at Arsenal
Henry is Arsenal’s greatest player of all time.
The legendary Frenchman joined the Gunners in 1999, and even though he had a slow start, he became a superstar under Arsene Wenger.
Although Vieira was the one who wore the captain’s armband, everyone turned to Henry to make a difference in tough games, and he often delivered.
That made him a real leader, so much so that Cesc Fabregas has revealed that Henry was his idol when he first came into the Arsenal dressing room. That was one of the reasons why he was scared of him.
Furthermore, the former Gunners captain compared the France icon to Lionel Messi.
He told CBS Sports: “Thierry was a special, special character. I never told him this… I respected him so much that I was scared of him. I was so scared because he was an idol, he was the leader, and inside, this guy was so serious and was a winner.
“Two guys that in my career I thought were complete winners – one is Leo Messi. I’d never seen someone with that winning mentality. The other one I would say is Thierry.
“Inside the dressing room, I remember him dancing, I remember him making some jokes. He would always bring these games, maybe he can tell you more, where you have the dice, and you have to kind of lie or something like that.
“I used to play with the big boys. I was there, I was always so scared, but he was always with me. I have to say only thank you, even today, for how he has treated me. How good he made me feel.
“Now he will know that I was a bit scared of him. But not anymore.”
Would Cesc Fabregas be your number one pick to replace Mikel Arteta at Arsenal one day? If not, who is?
Arteta will leave Arsenal one day. Who should replace him when that happens?
Lionel Messi said the same thing about Arsenal legend Thierry Henry
Henry has been described as one of the nicest people by those close to him, but for others, he can be a little intimidating.
Fabregas experienced this early on in his Arsenal career, but he is not the only one.
Even Messi, who is arguably the greatest player of all time, feared Henry the first time he saw him in the Barcelona dressing room.
“The first day he entered the dressing room, I did not dare to look him in the face,” Messi once said, as per the Daily Mail.
“I knew everything he had done in England. I had an image of him made, and suddenly we were on the same team.”
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