Thierry Henry breaks silence on reports he was applying to become Belgium coach to replace Roberto Martinez

Thier­ry Hen­ry has bro­ken his silence on rumors that he is eye­ing the Bel­gian nation­al team job.

The Red Dev­ils are with­out a man­ag­er fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Rober­to Martínez after they were elim­i­nat­ed at the World Cup group stage last year.

Accord­ing to Bel­gian reports, Hen­ry, Mar­tinez’s deputy, is being con­sid­ered as a can­di­date, but the foot­ball giant has been ruled out.

Speak­ing to Sky Sports, the Arse­nal and French leg­end said: “Con­trary to what has been made pub­lic, I have made it clear that I have not con­tact­ed the Bel­gian Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tion to offer my ser­vices as the new head coach of the first team. I want to do it,” he said.

I think it’s impor­tant to “always tell the truth”.

The Bel­gian Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tion has been look­ing for Mar­tinez’s suc­ces­sor since ear­ly on.

The ad for the posi­tion said, “Even after an ear­ly exit from the Qatar World Cup, the RBFA remains high­ly ambi­tious for the future.”

The RBFA are look­ing for a full-time nation­al coach who knows how to win. ”

“The new head coach is very ambi­tious, with inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence at the high­est lev­el, tac­ti­cal knowl­edge, foot­ball sense and the right peo­ple,” he said.

“He’s a ser­i­al win­ner with the high­est lev­el of play­er man­age­ment experience.

“He’s focused on build­ing a tight-knit group and knows how to inte­grate young players.

“What foot­ball asso­ci­a­tions are look­ing for are tac­ti­cal experts who back up their deci­sion-mak­ing with data, tech­nol­o­gy and objec­tive para­me­ters, and build on the RBFA’s expe­ri­ence and sport­ing structure.”

Qual­i­fy­ing for the last 16 of the FIFA World Cup was a fail­ure for Martinez.

The for­mer Wigan man­ag­er said: “As you can imag­ine, it’s very emo­tion­al because it was my last game with the nation­al team.

“Whether we won the World Cup or we were elim­i­nat­ed in the group stage, the end was decid­ed. Get­ting knocked out at this stage has noth­ing to do with me.

We have to accept that “today is the last game”. The deci­sion was made just before the World Cup.

“I always work with a long-term view. I think long-term projects should be long-term and fixed in advance.”

But Martínez took over as Por­tu­gal’s man­ag­er this week after a dis­ap­point­ing six-year stint as Bel­gium manager.