Thierry Henry has opened up about realising he “must have been in depression” during his career.

The 46-year-old former forward, who won the World Cup with France and is Arsenal’s all-time highest scorer, says he had a moment early in the coronavirus pandemic where he was “crying almost every day”.

Henry has linked that to his past and a search for approval, having grown up with a father who was critical of his performances.

Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, Henry said: “Throughout my career, and since I was born, I must have been in depression.

“Did I know it? No. Did I do something about it? No. But I adapted to a certain way. That doesn’t mean I’m walking straight, but I’m walking. You’ve got to put one foot (forward) and another one, and walk. That’s what I’ve been told since I’m young.

“I never stopped walking, then maybe I would have realised. (But during) Covid – I stopped walking. I couldn’t. Then you start to realise.”

Henry says he had a “cape” for when he “felt a struggle coming” during his playing career, and that after retiring in 2014, he then was “trying to find a way to wear that cape”.

He was on the Belgium coaching staff and managed Monaco before taking charge at Montreal Impact in late 2019, and he said: “Then Covid happened. I was in isolation in Montreal, and not being able to see my kids for a year was tough.”

Henry says at that time he was “crying almost every day for no reason”, adding: “Tears were coming alone. Why I don’t know, but maybe they were there for a very long time.

“Technically, it wasn’t me, it was the young me. (Crying for) everything he didn’t get, approval.”

Regarding his upbringing, Henry said his father was “very particular at times on how I was as a player”, adding: “As a little boy it was always ‘you didn’t do that well’. So obviously when you hear that more often than not, that’s what’s going to stay.”

He recalled an occasion as a teenager when he scored all of the goals in a 6-0 win, only for his father to tell him he should not be happy because “you missed that control, you missed that cross.”

While the situation “did to a degree help the athlete” it “didn’t help so much the human being”, he said.

Henry – currently France Under-21s boss – says after the period of isolation in Montreal, he had a key moment with his children that made him “feel human”.

Reflecting on when he had come back home and was about to return to Montreal in early 2021, he said: “I put my bags down to say bye and everybody starts to cry, from the nanny to my girlfriend to the kids.

“For the first time…I am like ‘oh – they see me, not the football player, not the accolades’, and I felt human.

“I put my bags down and I stopped coaching in Montreal. I said ‘What am I doing? Going to go again into a situation just because of your pursuit of pleasing people? They love Thierry, not Thierry Henry.’ I stayed, for the first time I felt human…and it felt nice.”