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Henry & Bergkamp pull out of Arsenal legends game against AC Milan

By mac14 on August 30, 2016

Arsenal fans have been left disappointing after the club confirmed this evening that Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp have pulled out of this weekend’s charity legends game against AC Milan.

With the international break scheduled for this weekend, the Arsenal Foundation has set-up a highly anticipated charity game between a team of Arsenal legends and AC Milan Glorie at the Emirates on Saturday.

I, like many fans, jumped at the chance of getting tickets for the event with Henry and Bergkamp arguably the two main attractions who were initially expected to be on show.

However, the two squads have just been announced on Arsenal.com and sadly neither player is able to attend the showpiece event this weekend.

Henry is no longer available after being named as the Belgian national team assistant manager and he told the clubs website that he was disappointed to be missing out playing in front of the Arsenal fans again:

“Sadly I will be unable to play in the Arsenal legends game due to my new commitments with the Belgium national team. I was looking forward to being reunited with the Arsenal fans, old friends and of course helping raise money for a worthwhile cause. I wish the boys every success and hope the team can secure a victory in my absence!”

No reason is given as to why Bergkamp can no longer attend but I assume he must have other commitments linked with his role at Ajax. Either way, it’s hugely disappointing that my favourite two strikers won’t be on show.

So with Tony Adams also not playing, all three legends who have their own statues outside the stadium won’t be attending. Some ‘legends’ match this is going to be!

Thankfully there will be plenty of other legends playing as Robert Pires, Freddie Ljungberg, Gilberto, Ray Parlour, Dave Seaman and Marc Overmars are all in the squad. Oh, and Pascal Cygan!

Here is the full Arsenal squad:

Jens Lehmann, David Seaman, Martin Keown, Marc Overmars, Ray Parlour, Emmanuel Petit, Pascal Cygan, Gilberto, Nigel Winterburn, Kolo Toure, Robert Pires, Freddie Ljungberg, Sylvain Wiltord, Anders Limpar, Gilles Grimandi and Kanu.

And the AC Milan Glorie squad is:

Christian Abbiati, Dida, Cafu, Paolo Maldini, Demetrio Albertini, Alessandro Costacurta, Paolo Di Canio, Edgar Davids, Marcel Desailly, Daniele Massaro, Marco Simone, Angelo Carbone, Dario Simic, Giuseppe Favalli, Kakhaber Kaladze, Zvonimir Boban, Massimo Ambrosini, Stefano Eranio, Giuseppe Pancaro, Ibrahim Ba, Serginho and Christian Vieri.