Henry heartened by French ´soul´

France captain Thierry Henry on Thursday praised his side’s “soul” after they kept their hopes of automatic World Cup qualification alive with a battling 1-1 draw against Serbia.

The visitors fell behind to a 13th-minute penalty after goalkeeper Hugo Lloris had been sent off for a foul on Serbia forward Nikola Zigic, but Henry’s 50th international goal enabled them to draw level before half-time.

“Considering the circumstances and the things that were being said about us, we proved that we have quality and we reacted together in the face of adversity,” said the Barcelona forward.

Henry made the news earlier in the week after it was reported that he had openly questioned coach Raymond Domenech’s methods ahead of the 1-1 draw with Romania at the weekend, but the former Arsenal man reiterated his rebuttal of the claims made in Le Parisien newspaper.

“It’s annoying, it’s not the truth,” he said. “If everything they’d written had been true, if I’d really said all of that on Friday, do you really think I would still have been captain against Romania the day after?”

Henry was particularly annoyed by the offence caused to Domenech, but believes the performance against Serbia was the perfect response.

“The coach is a human being,” Henry said. “You shouldn’t forget that. But you saw that we were able to put that to the back of our mind. We’re confident. This team has a soul.”

France’s courageous display in Belgrade drew praise from pundits who have criticised the team after a less than inspiring qualification campaign to date, but Henry said he was not surprised by the performance.

“We were convinced that something had already started to happen against Romania on Saturday,” he said. “We should have been 3-0 up at half-time.

“Against Serbia, after the red card and the penalty, we ended up playing more football than they did, even though it’s never easy to play 10 against 11.”

The draw leaves France four points behind Serbia in Group Nine and with two matches remaining the play-offs appear their most likely route to next summer’s tournament in South Africa.

“It’s true that to finish first in the group we’ll need Serbia to have a catastrophe,” conceded Henry. “We’ll play for second place. We have to get to the World Cup, whichever way possible.”