Thierry Henry said that he has respect for any player that shows the bravery to step up in a penalty shoot-out, after Liverpool was knocked out of the Champions League earlier this week.
The Reds drew 1-1 on aggregate with Paris Saint-Germain after the away team in each leg won 1-0, and 30 minutes of extra-time was not enough to separate the two sides, meaning the tie went to penalties.
Mohamed Salah stepped up first for the Reds and scored, but he was the only player to do so, as both Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones saw their efforts kept out by Gianluigi Donnarumma.
PSG, by contrast, scored four from four, with Vitinha, Goncalo Ramos, Ousmane Dembele and Desire Doue all finding the net from 12 yards.
Despite seeing their efforts saved, Henry praised Nunez and Jones for putting themselves forward. Henry declared on CBS Sports the pair had gained his respect.
He said: “It’s tough, but I always say to people that if you want to take the penalty, I will respect you always, because to go there and take it, you have my respect. You’re going to miss some, that’s just how it is, Donnarumma guessed the right side twice.”
Nunez was embraced by his teammates as he returned to the halfway line after his miss in the shoot-out, and Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk voiced his support for the Uruguayan, as well as Jones, in a post-match interview.
“It’s part of football,” Van Dijk said. “I said to the guys ‘you can be disappointed because we are out of the competition, but chin up’. Now we get ready for the next challenge at the weekend which is a beautiful one.
“I think we were pretty good today as well, and you want to go as far as possible, but we knew when we drew PSG it was going to be very difficult. We saw in Paris when we struggled but we won, and today we saw a very good Liverpool side but we’re out of the competition.
“Today from the first second and then extra time, when fatigue kicks in for both sides, it becomes more open but especially regular time, we showed a very good game. We can speak about the game for ages but we’re out of the competition, that is the reality.”
