The French team experienced a historic evening on Saturday evening in Nice, signing the largest victory in its history, against the modest Gibraltar team (14-0), as part of the qualifiers for Euro 2024. But this great accomplishment was tarnished by the injury to Warren Zaire-Emery. The young Parisian, for his first match with the Blues, scored his first goal a quarter of an hour into the game, before leaving with an injury in the process. A series of events that his former coach at the Bleuets, Thierry Henry, considered “bizarre”.
“It’s hard, we all watched the match to see Warren. No disrespect to anyone, we just wanted to see Warren get on the field and score. The emotion was a little weird because you jump for joy at his goal and… he stays on the ground. If you know Warren at all, he tells the doctor he’s okay but he’s not. Everyone was a little sad. This is what he gives off every time. Everyone is happy when they are happy and everyone is sad when they are sad,” declared the former Arsenal striker at a press conference.
“Titi” subsequently dissected the PSG midfielder’s goal in detail. “I personally thought he was going to score because he can project himself forward quickly, as you could see. It’s a bit like the goals he’s scoring at PSG at the moment where he manages to get into the box. It ends well. We have a really very special player,” underlined the coach of the France Espoirs team.
The second top scorer in the history of the France team also wished his former player and captain a good recovery: “He will always remember this evening, despite the injury. It’s his debut in A. It’s not easy to score in your first match, he managed to do it. I don’t know what he can’t do actually. May he recover well, hoping to see him again as soon as possible,” Henry concluded.
Warren Zaire-Emery should be unavailable for several weeks following his ankle injury and should not be back until 2024. The 17-year-old prodigy will therefore miss PSG’s next two decisive matches in the Champions League, against Newcastle at Parc des Princes and the trip to Dortmund.