Thierry Henry predicted Porto star would miss crucial penalty against Arsenal

Thierry Henry knew Galeno was going to miss Porto’s crucial penalty against Arsenal (Picture: CBS)

While the Emirates Stadium held its collective breath ahead of Galeno’s crucial penalty against Arsenal, Thierry Henry remained characteristically cool as a cucumber.

An intoxicating tie finally reached its decisive moment during a tense penalty shootout with the Brazilian winger, who scored the only goal of the first leg, needing to beat David Raya in order to extend the contest.

The Arsenal goalkeeper, however, sprung to his left to produce another agile save and send his team through to the last eight of the Champions League for the first time in 14 years.

Gunners legend Henry, however, was so confident that Galeno would miss that he had already vacated his position in the media section of the Emirates Stadium in order to make it pitchside in time to carry out his post-match presenting duties.

‘He misses’ Henry was overhead saying to the camera, prior to Raya producing the most iconic moment of his Arsenal career to date.

‘It was the way he put the ball down,’ Henry later revealed. ‘He looked suspicious to me so I left.’

Man of the moment Raya, meanwhile, was thrilled with his contribution to the victory but afterwards conceded he should have saved three penalties, having got fingertips to Marko Grujic’s effort.

‘I should have saved three!” Raya remarked to TNT Sports post-match.

‘I should have saved the other one… but obviously over the moon to save two penalties in the Champions League to get to the quarter-finals.’

The goalkeeper added: ‘We played a really, really good game from the start, we dominated and created chances but it went down to penalties.

David Raya produced two saves to help Arsenal reach the quarter-finals of the Champion League (Picture: Getty)

‘We’ve been working a lot on penalties this year, because on nights like this we need to be really, really good.

‘All the hard work with the goalkeeping coach and with the team has paid off, obviously it’s a great moment personally and collectively.’

Raya also earned the praise of his manager, Mikel Arteta, who made the difficult decision to replace the popular Aaron Ramsdale with the loan signing from Brentford in the summer.

He said: ‘We had to do it at the end with the penalties, we prepared well, and credit to the coaches as well for the way they did it and obviously for David [Raya].

‘He had some difficult moments to start but he stood up, had an incredible personality and ambition, and at the end he got rewarded with his moment.

‘I don’t have to see him today, I was very convinced that was going to be the case. You see in the first few days here and what he had to go through and how he did it with that composure.

‘You look at his body language, and the position that he takes, he doesn’t get very affected and that’s a key quality for a goalkeeper.’

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