Thierry Henry’s “imminent” arrival in New York has been one of the more persistent items on the MLS rumour mill. Doubtless, post that Ireland game, some wags will ask whether Henry might not be more suited to the ailing New York Knicks, given his deft handling skills. Sarcasm aside, if Henry does come here – and it is still an “if” – expect to see him not at Madison Square Garden, but at the new Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey.
Any excitement should be tempered by the realisation that this particular rumour has been percolating since 2007. The source was Henry himself, waxing lyrical in a New York Times interview about how much he loves New York City and American sports (especially, wags take note, basketball). And while he is not an entirely unknown commodity here, having featured alongside Roger Federer and Tiger Woods in a commercial for Gillette razors, he certainly does not have the instant recognition factor of a David Beckham.
Apparently, Henry has no problem with that. “In New York and in America, I can be myself, I have no eyes on me. It’s O.K. if I want to buy a slice of pizza, pay the man and sit on a bench. I can go to the cinema and watch a movie, and nobody knows who I am. You don’t know how great that is,” he told The Times.
Stoking the transfer talk, in August 2008 the New York Post ran a short feature in which the 32 year old again declared his love of all things American. As recently as last month, there were reports of Manchester City coach Mark Hughes speculating that Henry was in talks with the Red Bulls. So as matters currently stand, it’s still a rumour, but hardly an outlandish one.
Signing Henry would be a terrific boost at both club and league level. Right now, the Red Bulls have to market their new stadium in a city that is undergoing lean times financially, in a year in which the World Cup in South Africa will be the dominant football event. Even in a healthier economy, pushing MLS in a city that has far more established franchises in baseball, gridiron football, basketball and hockey is no easy task.
Henry’s sublime abilities in the forward line, decently on show during Barcelona’s crucial Champions League victory over Inter, could nonetheless propel MLS to further success off the back of a fine season. Off the field, new franchises are on the way over the next two years in Philadelphia, Portland and Vancouver. On the field, the recent playoffs which culminated in a thrilling MLS Cup Final between LA Galaxy and Real Salt Lake showed that there is an engaging quality about the league’s more powerful clubs.
Indeed, watching the play-off contest between Chicago Fire and New England Revolution, I recalled the snipe of one UK commentator to the effect that an MLS game was little better than an average Saturday in League Two, the bottom tier of English football. Assertions like that are based on the lazy, conceited assumption that Americans can’t play “our” football. As anyone who followed the MLS post-season would attest, a side like Salt Lake or Houston could absolutely make the grade in the English Championship.
Henry’s prospective club, the Red Bulls, are not among the best – although MLS watchers will tell you that can change rapidly. The fluidity of this league means that, as yet, there is no “Big Four” equivalent (or should I say “Big Three”?) While 2009 was a proverbial annus horribilis for the Red Bulls, with the club finishing up with the second-worst performance record in MLS history, they can at least remind their critics that they were finalists in the MLS Cup the previous year.
Might they scale the heights again? The enticing prospect of Henry playing upfront with Juan Pablo Angel – assuming the lawyers can sort contracts so that Henry appears alongside, rather than instead of, the Colombian striker – could turn the Red Bulls into the most exciting club in MLS. Like Henry, Angel played for a top flight club, Aston Villa, in the Premier League. He had a particularly good season at Villa in 2003-04, with a final tally of 23 goals; not including European competitions, Henry netted 34 for Arsenal in the same season.
As well as being a prolific scorer, Henry is also, as anyone who remembers his performances with Dennis Bergkamp at Arsenal will testify, a fine partner. And Angel, who has often cut a lonely figure on the pitch since Jozy Altidore’s departure for Europe, could do with a partner.
Yet even if the deadly hypothesis of Henry and Angel becomes a reality, the Red Bulls still need to take a hard look round the back. Last season, Danny Cepero and Bounda Coundoul’s efforts in goal were frequently compromised by a chaotic defence. Here, the Red Bulls can learn much from the efforts of their former coach, Bruce Arena, at the LA Galaxy. Arena knows well that a Beckham or a Donovan can give any team a dangerous edge, but only if they are enabled to do so. In quietly dismantling the culture of awe around Beckham, and in demonstrating that no player is infallible (as Donovan himself underlined when he wildly fired the ball over the crossbar during the MLS Cup penalty shoot-out), Arena established the principles which helped turn the Galaxy’s fortunes around.
That brings me to my final observation about Thierry Henry. A few months ago, I argued in these pages that MLS should not fall into the trap of being driven by a handful of stars approaching the twilight of their careers. The key is player development, the challenge – as MLS Commissioner Don Garber has correctly emphasised – is keeping the many talented players MLS has spawned on this side of the Atlantic. Let’s suppose that Henry comes to MLS fresh from the World Cup; that won’t change the fact that the league will have lost players of the calibre of Chicago’s Chris Rolfe and Salt Lake’s Yura Movsisyan to Danish clubs during the off season. After all, it is out of players like these that a great league is made.
Written by Ben Cohen
