Jordan Henderson received a shock reminder to the English team of England on Friday, with Thomas Tuchel welcoming him in the fold again after an exile of 16 months.
Henderson, 34, left the Three Lions camp under a dark cloud after criticizing it at Saudi Pro League side Al-Intifaq, after he had previously established himself as a strong voice against homophobia in football.
His stint in the Middle East was short-lived, with the Liverpool legend sealing a switch to the Dutch giants Ajax less than six months after leaving Anfield for Saudi Arabia.
The midfielder quickly took the bracelet of the captain with Ajax, but his enchantment in Amsterdam has not been flexible. Last month the 34-year-old was involved in a heated spit with reporters in the midst of claims that he refused to play in an attempt to secure a January switch to Monaco.
Ian Herbert van Mail Sport believes that Henderson's status has taken a considerable blow in the modern game since his departure of Merseyside and offers a strict reality control for the English veteran.
It is hard to believe that soon after the start of the Dark Covid days after the start of those dark days after approaching, we seemed so little ambient light and Jordan Henderson seemed to offer something.
We all grabbed evidence of humanity in football. Henderson put his voice together to the players, together which encouraged donations to the NHS with other Captains and ended up with a MBE.
“If there are things that can help people in the future, I am sure we will want to do this,” he said after he was called the player of the football writers of the year around that time, little knowing how that future would bring him into a PR -Dodelig spiral.
It descended to another low point on Sunday when he started an extraordinary confrontation of 15 minutes of press conference with a polite but fearless Ajax Press Corps in Amsterdam.
The journalists did not want to ask him unreasonably about suggestions – who did not do anything to his employers at Ajax to deny – that he had lobbyed last month for a move to Monaco.
The exchange was unbearable, in which Henderson the respected sportswriter Mike Verweij of De Telegraaf stared during a particularly confrontational exchange in which he claimed that Dutch media reports made his family Van Streek.
He insisted that Verweij's report was 'false', but was still evasive when it was asked to specify which parts. “I don't give you any details. I am not here to give you details, “he moaned.
Someone suggested – without irony – that he had to go to the club and say, “Hey, tell them the true story,” because of his own reputation.
“No,” he insisted during this winding process, by pointing an irritation with multi -year suggestions in the Netherlands that he is being paid too much.
Henderson actually has grounds to defend itself. The inner story of the Monaco affair is that Ajax was receptive to selling him, after a terrible last few seasons in which they have a helly money.
A Dutch source tells me: 'They said to him:' You are our player who earns the most, so do you want to help us? “But then they tried to hide the fact. '
Henderson was open for a move to Monaco, with its attractive tax implications, but Ajax's coach Francesco Faroli insisted that the No. 6 hinge in his defensive system this winter should not leave.
Henderson could claim that he has been a merchandise for Ajax, who did nothing to protect him against allegations he has agitated to leave.
All he had to do was give this -say what happened -but his repetition and passive aggression changed that press conference into a PR car -accident that the Dutch divided into their opinion about a player, for whom Amsterdam was a very useful port in a storm to Saudi -Arabia.
Rafael van de Vaart, now an expert, has since called Henderson 'A Piece of S ***', while the Algemeen Dagblad -Columnist Sjoerd Mossou has postponed on Fakery on Fakery in his discussion about the former Liverpool captain.
“Some people are real and others are fake, but there is an extra layer,” he wrote. 'People who play a role to flatter others. The calculators, the actors and the unreliable. 'Au.
Part of the comments is unfair, but the high and powerful tone of Henderson certainly brought it to itself, in a country where the views of the standard of his own football are mixed.
“It's 50-50. Many say he doesn't bring that much to Ajax, “says the source. He certainly played well in the Vital 2-1 victory on Sunday at Rivals Feyenoord, with whom they are involved in a title fight.
The victim is that he may feel, the disastrous and hypocritical relocation from Henderson to Saudi in 2023 was no longer forgotten by the Dutch than the British.
Mossou reminded his readers at the weekend how, in England, Henderson also played the socially involved, ideal son -in -law for years.
'He presented himself as a loyal enthusiast, a real club player and the empathic figurehead for LGBTQ rights and the British gay community. Then he went to play football for all Ettifaq. '
Those who advise Henderson – and are probably well paid to do this – can tell him that after the fame of that Saudi company, with its terrible point of view, a little humility and respect in the public atmosphere would go a long way to improve his reputation.
He is not the only player who has appointed a MBE in the COVID era whose fortunes have of course been in a tail -spider.
The work of Marcus Rashford on food poverty gave him the structure and the goal he needed in his life and exposed him to positive influences.
Those who claim him to 'advise him' have ensured that these influences are excluded. He now looks a lost soul.
Henderson is not lost. A move from the Netherlands, and another large payment day, probably seems this summer and he will retire a very rich man.
But it is not too late to appreciate that a MBE and Slinger van Lof do not immunize control and questions associated with the enormous salaries and profile of football.
It is five years since that is all. It feels like a lifetime ago.
Comments