[lokken]

Henry plays well for Arsenal because Arsenal play to keep the ball and move the ball quickly. Zidane etc are sitting there waiting to give the killer pass but really all they need to do is stick the ball into space asap, and henry will do the rest. On top of that Malouda/Wiltord don't seem to be a patch on Ljungberg/Reyes on bombing forward so there's bound to be less space for him. Instead of Van Persie supporting there's a holding player in Makelele and the youth of Fabregas coming into the box is instead Zidane who barely moves. It's why Henry scores great (but often actually quite simple) goals because the whole Arsenal set up is designed to make space for the whole team.

Like Brazil and Ronaldinho, France are suffering because there is no freedom and space for their best player. To make it worse, this seems to be a world cup where less teams are going for the upset proper and are just hanging on to a 0-0 for dear life instead.