Thierry Henry has finally made the switch to USA's New York Red Bulls official after so many rumors being mooted even from the previous year. Thierry Henry is not just any player, he's a football player who has lit up football so much for the last decade and a half in Europe. From his breakthrough season with Monaco under Arsene Wenger, from the way he performed so well to impress the then France coach Aime Jacquet to include him into the national set-up, and went on to win the World Cup in 1998, then to his big transfer overseas to Juventus which did not end really well, and to when his Monaco manager Arsene Wenger rescued him to Arsenal, converted him into a pacy striker, and the rest is history as he contributed so much to Arsenal he deserves the title “Mr. Arsenal” and his move to Barcelona where he helped the Catalan club win the famous Treble. Towards the end of his glittering and eventful career, it has somewhat taken a dive in the past few years, especially in the season just past. He lost his first team place in Barcelona, and in the national set up, he provoked the ire of the entire Republic of Ireland for “that” handball incident in the World Cup qualifiers playoffs, and also the messy and sad (except if you are an Irish) World Cup campaign. Seems that everything that could go wrong, go wrong for the Frenchman. Thus, now he has moved away from Europe, where all those eclectic mixture of greatness and craziness are jumbled up into one for a new journey in the Major League Soccer (MLS) in the USA with New York Red Bulls.
This transfer undoubtedly created such a hype that many pundits around the world have started to compare and even gauge whether this transfer will be even more hyped and impactful than David Beckham's transfer to LA Galaxy from Real Madrid in 2007. Many people are also divided on Henry's motives for the transfer, some cited monetary purposes, some cited escapism from all those things in Europe, and some other even would cite re-launching his recently flailing career on greener pastures. All these will be delved carefully by yours truly in a moment.
Firstly, many people have started to come into a conclusion that Henry agreed for the move to NY Red Bulls simply for the money, or for a player on he wrong end of his career, to go on to “semi retirement” in the USA. There have been many top players in the past that have done this kind of moves from the top European Leagues where they have played during their hey-days to a considerably weaker league in another continent. Examples are ranging from Franz Beckenbauer and Pele's moves to the now defunct New York Cosmos in 1970s, Mario Kempes and Roger Milla playing in Indonesia, and recently Fernandi Hierro and Gabriel Batistuta in Qatar, and even more recently Fabio Cannavaro moving to the UAE. When one moves to these leagues, and MLS is certainly one of them, these players are specially treated, and for Thierry Henry's case in MLS, he's one of the few designated “marquee players” in his club as MLS allows some players in the club, especially overseas stars to be those designated players and thus the league's salary cap does not apply to them. This translates to sky high wages, which is also seen as necessary to attract these players to these leagues. Thus, many argued that this is the reason why Henry was compelled for a move to the MLS. Probably that's the case, as had he moved to smaller clubs in Europe, such as his first club Monaco, he might even be required to take pay-cuts to play for them as even if they are willing to give the player a high wage, but they might not be able to really afford it. But, in these leagues such as in West Asia and the USA, money is not really an issue and they are prepared to pay huge sums of money to attract these players into their shores.
By now, many people would think that footballers only think about money. But, we have to see things in perspective. Even if they “play” football for a living, it's still for a living, and “playing football”, the thing which they constantly do, is actually working. They are working to earn money, and the huge sum of money that they are receiving is actually because of the rarity of top professional footballers. Basic economic law, when supply is low, price is high. Thus, we shouldn't blame any players including Henry if they consider the monetary aspects as well when considering a move. However, even if Henry did consider that aspect for his move to New York, we have to see that it might just be one small reasons out of a plethora of reasons such as the ones I am bout to highlight.
The second possible motive for this move is also perhaps to really escape all the unwanted media attention that he has been getting in Europe, starting from his decline in form for Barcelona and France, as well as the handball and World Cup fracas. I know that his move generated such a huge hype that almost literally sent a huge shock-wave to shake the the whole world (which we will touch upon again later on). However, we have to realize one more thing, that MLS is not really under the microscope, unlike the top leagues such as the La Liga, English Premier League (mooted transfer to Newcastle United or Manchester City), and even if he had decided to come back to France to Ligue 1. He will still be under immense pressure from media and his every move will be under a watchful gigantic microscope, the last thing he wants, especially at this stage of his career.
For the MLS, not only it is really difficult to watch a live match of the league outside of the USA, even within the USA itself, Americans are too busy following other more “American sports” such as Rugby (NFL), basketball (NBA), and baseball (MLB). It means that somehow once the hype of his transfer ha settled down, he would be able to settle down nicely as well in his new life in New York. Even Beckham, throughout his seasons with LA Galaxy did not really receive a lot of media attention in Europe (thus the world) and as mentioned, even in the USA it will be massively shielded by the shadows from those aforementioned American sports. Thus, he would not be getting massive media attention week-in week-out, and this is necessary to implement the saying “time will heal everything” as over time, and with little attention, his wrongdoings (read: Irish debacle) will be quietly forgotten, although I won't bet against his handball replay being featured just before every World Cup editions from now on. But in any case, he will be left to do his own stuff with New York Red Bulls in relative peace.
The third reason will be about the pure sporting reason of Henry's transfer to the New York Red Bulls. As I mentioned, at this stage of his career, he is unlikely to get many games had he stayed on in the top leagues of Europe. Thus it is rational in the sporting term that he moves to a “weaker” league in another continent. In New York Red Bulls, he is already tipped to create a prolific partnership with fellow former EPL star Juan Pablo Angel (who is himself becoming a great striker in MLS unlike his rather mediocre self in Aston Villa shirt) and I believe Henry will do well as he is more than likely to get a regular run of games throughout the season as well as scoring plenty of goals for fun. This in turn will bring Henry hope with one eye towards the sacred blue shirt with the cockerel logo. Some top pundits have mentioned that Henry will forget about the national team, unlike Beckham who kept and still keeps his availability for a call-up to the national team. However, I believe that when Henry finally proves to be a very prolific striker with the New York Red Bulls, I believe he will surface again in the European media about his possible return to the national team set-up. I believe he will not spurn that chance to represent les-bleus again especially as he would be hungry to prove any doubters wrong and to “settle unfinished business” from the disastrous World Cup 2010 campaign, even if he is to feature for France as an impact substitute rather than being a pillar of the team.
I believe, Henry's reason for opting to go to the USA is indeed an eclectic mixture of the various reasons mentioned above jumbled into one. In any case, I believe Henry's words to the media that he's not going to New York for a lengthy and paid vacations, but he's a man on a mission, eager to get the records straight again, and also to prove to the whole world that there's still plenty of gas left in his tank despite many claiming that his career is as good as finished.
Also, we have to remember that this transfer is not a one way thing in which only Henry benefits from all of these. His club stands to gain a lot of things with Henry on board. Firstly, he will certainly augment their attacking force and MLS fans will now shudder to think and calculate the possible amount of goals that could be scored by the Angel-Henry partnership between the two of them and that how far New York Red Bulls could possibly go in the competition. Besides that, the club also stands to gain a lot of financial windfall as merchandising from shirt sales will definitely go up which will benefit the club greatly, and also not forgetting the fact that many people will now want to go to the games to see Thierry Henry in action, I have also seen some facebook statuses (from Americans) that with the arrival of Henry in the MLS, this is definitely the time to start going to the games. This translates into one thing, that attendances for MLS games, especially during New York Red Bulls' home matches will rise sharply, and this is definitely good for soccer as this game will definitely garner a lot of interests from the American public. Even though again many pundits claiming that Henry is not on a mission to change the soccer scape of the USA unlike what Beckham explicitly set out to do, he might just inadvertently do exactly that and make USA's soccer as well as the Beautiful Game as a whole to become a much better game. In any case, for one, I am eager to see how Thierry Henry will rejuvenate his career in the USA as well as rejuvenate the whole of US Soccer as well as the world.
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