Thierry Henry has praised Jadon Sancho for coming back from his mental struggles at Manchester United to produce an exceptional individual performance in Borussia Dortmund’s 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain.
Sancho was arguably the standout player on the pitch in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg at Signal Iduna Park, proving a constant thorn in PSG’s side as Niclas Fullkrug’s 36th-minute strike put Dortmund in control ahead of next week’s contest in Paris.
The Germany striker should really have had a second after a magical piece of wing play from Sancho on the hour mark, though blazed his effort over the bar from five yards out, much to the relief of PSG’s away fans at a raucous Westfalenstadion.
Sancho has largely flattered to deceive in United colours following a high-profile move from Dortmund back in 2021 and the England attacker rejoined the Bundesliga club on loan in January in the hope of reviving his career.
And while Sancho had shown signs of returning to his frightening best, his display against Kylian Mbappe and co was the biggest reminder yet of the winger’s undoubted talent that convinced the Red Devils to part with £73million just three years ago.
Analysing Dortmund’s victory in the TNT Sports studio, United great Rio Ferdinand waxed lyrical about Sancho’s showing, pondering why the forward has struggled to hit such heights in Manchester.
Legendary ex-Arsenal striker Henry was similarly blown away and applauded Sancho for managing to dig himself out of the mental rut he found himself in at Old Trafford.
‘We all know that he struggled mentally at Manchester United. The power of the brain and how you can be as a professional… when you’re not well here [in the mind], or at home, or whatever it is, you cannot perform. I don’t care where you are or who you are or the talent that you have,’ Henry said on CBS Sports.
‘You can see that things are a bit better up there, whatever the struggle was with him, because to do what he did tonight… I think at Manchester United he played 48 games and only dribbled past a player seven times. He did that in the first ten minutes tonight.
‘All I can say is: don’t underestimate that. Mental health is not an easy thing to deal with and you can see that when someone is well up there then they can perform, so well done, big man.’
According to Henry, Sancho made an ‘amazing’ decision when he opted to complete a temporary move back to Dortmund midway through the campaign.
‘You need to feel the love, you need to feel that you’re important and you can’t lose your football just like that,’ Henry added.
‘We all know that it happened to me, sometimes when you’re not well you cannot perform on the field, whatever situation you have outside.
‘More often than not we are very critical on guys that don’t perform because you are at a big club and you don’t perform, but you tend to forget about what’s happening outside the field.
‘If that’s not right then you’re not going to perform well and that’s why I think it was an amazing choice for him to go on loan back to Dortmund where he knows maybe that the light wasn’t going to be too much on him at the very beginning.’
‘He needed to go back into a certain performance, going back to playing games, having minutes in his games and you can see what it does.
‘When you have minutes, the balance is right in your head, everything is okay outside of the field, you’re okay mentally, then you can perform. What he did today… wow!’
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