Will Barça boys herald a brave new frontier for MLS?

American sports fans are renowned for their love of stats – not to mention an acronym or three. The steadily-developing MLS, still in its infancy, received a sudden shot in the arm recently by the relaxing of the ‘DP’ rule. The designated player statute was drafted into MLS predominantly to cater for marketable stars such as David Beckham in a competition previously governed in a relentlessly egalitarian manner. Contracts are centrally owned by the league and wage caps must be strictly adhered to; as the administration seeks to foster a stable, competitive league. Few would doubt that MLS has, to date, achieved this goal.

While Becks’ stay in LA has so far received mixed reviews, one of the few original DPs, Colombian centre forward Juan Pablo Angel, has brought rather more to the table. In fact, the one-time Aston Villa fan-favourite has almost single-handedly proven the worth of the new system by virtue of 56 goals in 89 MLS games since his move to New York Red Bulls four seasons ago. Those are the kind of sparkling stats to get armchair fans shuttling into the fast-growing number of soccer-specific stadia springing up in cities across the US.

So, on the back of a relatively successful World Cup adventure for the national team (which attracted healthy viewing figures and grabbed front-page headlines throughout), the MLS naturally decided that the time was ripe for further growth. To get more clubs to sign DPs, therefore increasing their ‘soccer superstar’ quotient, the rules were relaxed; allocating a maximum of three Designated Players, providing the club using the third slot paid – here comes that wonderful egalitarianism again – a $250,000 ‘luxury tax’ to be evenly distributed among the other 15 MLS franchises.

The Red Bulls, who opened an impressive $220m stadium recently, have been the first to capitalise. Now joining Angel in New York (or New Jersey, to be precise) are two Barcelona stalwarts who last season fell from grace at Camp Nou as Pep Guardiola chose to integrate home-grown starlets such as Pedro and Sergi Busquets in their place. Thierry Henry’s long-touted move Stateside was something of a PR coup for the league, but the rather more unanticipated signing of Mexico skipper Rafa Marquez has really piqued the interest of the States’ significant Hispanic community.

Making their first appearance in tandem for their new club on Sunday evening, Marquez and Henry were up against Eastern Division rivals Chicago Fire – a team which has also been quick to utilise the new DP ruling. Henry’s former Arsenal team-mate Freddie Ljungberg has been traded in from Seattle Sounders to add some much-needed fire to the Chicago attack and globe-trotting Mexican forward Nery Castillo joined, on loan, late last month to take the no.10 shirt of another Latin star; bunny-hopping veteran Cuauhtemoc Blanco, who returns south of the border to see out the final days of his career.

Some hype-hungry pundits heralded this game as the dawning of a new era in MLS, but in reality it was more of a hard-fought mid-season scrap peppered with just a little star dust from some half-fit erstwhile stars of the European game. In fact the game – in tempo and in quality – very much resembled an English second-tier game, which was fitting, as both teams featured strike-duos of former Premier League notoriety: Angel and Henry for the Red Bulls; Fulham cult-hero Brian McBride supported by Ljungberg in a free role for the home side.

A patently unfit Henry offered a limited threat during the first half – with one cutting, diagonal run through the Fire defence ending in a shot straight at impressive ‘keeper Sean Johnson. Lingering rust in the legs of a man who spent a significant chunk of the summer sulking in South Africa manifested itself in a minor groin strain, leading to his anti-climactic withdrawal just before the break. It was, instead, Titi’s former Gunners team-mate Ljungberg who came closest to breaking the deadlock. The ageless McBride fed the Swedish star with a smart angled pass, but the ball bobbled just as he looked set to bundle it in at the far post, instead going harmlessly wide off his thigh.

Henry’s nominated replacement, Jamaican winger Dane Richards (scorer of this dazzler against Manchester City last month: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGpJ5cfL22A) started the second half with a bang; a Rafa Marquez ball sent him driving to the goal-line to cross for the frequently clumsy Senegalese striker Macoumba Kandji, who couldn’t convert. Chicago, under the cosh for large swathes of the game, curiously decided to withdraw target-man McBride to offer Castillo his debut. A typically understated American welcome – fireworks and furious name-chanting – welcomed the nomadic youngster to his latest home; the one-time wonderkid having flopped in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Manchester since leaving Olympiacos three years ago.

With two diminutive forwards now at the point of attack, Chicago’s threat was diminished even further – while wilful but wayward former Fulham striker Collins John remained rooted to the bench. With the substitution of Marquez on the hour went the game’s last bastion of genuine quality. If the 31-year-old can maintain peak fitness amid the hectic MLS schedule and excessive air miles, his role as a Xabi Alonso-style playmaking ‘quarterback’ will be just as significant for the New Yorkers as Henry’s. And his ambitions are plain: “My expectations are the same in MLS (as at Barça), I want to win everything possible,” he told the press at his signing. “I have a winning mentality and I want to help this team win titles.”

As proceedings at an oversubscribed Toyota Park stadium slipped into a messy morass of misplaced passes, Angel – the one truly match-sharp DP – came close with a trio of well-worked efforts on goal, before Man of the Match Johnson preserved a point for Chicago with a top-class save from marauding defender Tim Ream.

So a goalless draw, or ‘tie’ if you prefer, failed to justify the hype. Upon his arrival, Rafa Marquez likened the standard of MLS to the Dutch Eredivisie or France’s Ligue 1. In truth, the quality of the league still lags behind that of its longer-established European cousins – that’s only natural. But if the remaining MLS franchises can pull off a few more DP signings in the mould of Marquez and co, it would serve to hasten the arrival of Stateside soccer as a global player.

Thierry Henry threatened by Domenech’s devil’s advocate

Within a year Thierry Henry has gone from vital cog in Barcelona’s well-oiled Champions League-winning machine to barely-used squad player. Three goals in his 16 league appearances this season is a paltry return for a man boasting such a prolific past record and is indicative of the French forward’s sharp decline in stature over the past 12 months. This has not gone unnoticed by Henry’s international manager, Raymond Domenech, who this week gave a TV interview stating that ‘Titi’ is still not certain of a trip to South Africa in June.

“When we have so many injuries and players who are not playing right now, it's not reassuring. If I have to do the squad list today, how do I do it?” Domenech recently asked in L’Équipe. “There is only one rule: the player who isn't ready on May 18 won't be kept.”

Perhaps this warning should be taken with a pinch, if not a ladleful, of salt, as the largely reviled Domenech also threatened to shoot his players if they failed to check their egos at the door and unify their talents under his uniquely oblique authority. Nonetheless, it does pull into sharp focus the current predicament of Henry, who, lest we forget, confirmed his team’s passage into finals by virtue of an infamous one-man game of pat-a-cake-pat-a-cake deep in the Irish penalty area Henry hand article.

Those who would delight in his absence on ‘moral’ grounds, have had the waters muddied by the increasing acceptance of Henry’s actions among the footballing fraternity – everyone from Frank Lampard to several of the Irish players involved that night has owned up that, if roles were reversed, they’d probably have done the same. Henry’s harshest critics, as is their wont, have been the French sporting public. Their frequent booing of the man who played such a prominent role in the country’s successes at their own World Cup and Euro 2000 has soured further the acrid atmosphere during Les Bleus’ recent lacklustre home performances. Yet, crucially, he retains the unstinting support of his teammates.

So the case for Henry’s exclusion can only be made solely on footballing grounds.

Aside from his uncharacteristically meagre goal tally, beyond all dispute is the fact that the 32-year-old’s once-searing acceleration has diminished significantly of late. This was made all the more apparent by the electrifying impact of his erstwhile Arsenal team-mate Theo Walcott (yet to figure out how best to harness his abundant talents) during the absorbing Champions League quarter-final ties between Henry’s past and present clubs. Henry did not feature in Barça’s home leg footballing exhibition, following criticism from the Catalan press of his supposedly over-milked reception at the Emirates a week previously. He then sat out El Clasico completely; dropped from Pep Guardiola’s squad for the make-or-break Primera División clash.

Guardiola clearly has plenty of options to call upon to play alongside Messi and Ibrahimović in preference to his ageing striker – Bojan Krkić, Andrés Iniesta, Pedro, even the versatile Dani Alves. Come season’s end – with presidential elections leading inevitably to a new wave of signings which could include luminaries such as Franck Ribéry, David Villa or Benfica’s sublimely gifted winger Ángel Di María – Henry will most likely be on his way.

MLS franchise New York Red Bulls would be delighted if they could lure such a globally-renowned name as Henry’s to join the likes of ex-Aston Villa striker Juan Pablo Angel and Notts County’s Brummie pocket-rocket Luke Rodgers in a squad comprised of never-made-its and has-beens. The ambitious outfit have long been linked too with Real Madrid’s Raúl – another infrequently-used star at a Spanish giant, who has not represented his country since being ruthlessly dumped (to good effect) by Luis Aragones. Such a move for Henry, though, would surely spell the beginning of the end of an illustrious, award-laden career.

David Beckham’s stateside defection came erroneously early – the decision taken at a time when he was out of favour in Madrid, yet not an entirely spent force (as his Serie A spells have proven). Henry, however, has so much based the effectiveness of his game on speed – primarily of movement, but also of thought – and is less likely to forge such a mid-30s comeback, given his persistent back troubles.

That established, the big question facing Domenech is whether he should effectively draw the curtain on Henry’s top-level career in the most dramatic and, arguably, unreasonably premature manner. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that one of the most notoriously idiosyncratic coaches of modern times could omit an out-of-form superstar from his World Cup plans, given his clear disregard for public opinion and the lack of accountability arising from his guaranteed departure from his role after the finals. Certainly, there are compelling alternatives.

Djibril Cissé will win few awards for the consistency of his finishing, but is enjoying a new lease of life in Athens this year; Chelsea’s Nicolas Anelka, though goal-shy in recent months, is a certainty; Sidney Govou is a reliable – and versatile – squad member who is fancied to join either Sevilla or Roma when his contract at Lyon expires this summer; temperamental winger Hatem Ben Arfa, of Marseille, is a livewire who can be deployed across the front-line; one-time Arsenal target Loïc Rémy has topped the Ligue 1 scoring charts for most of the season in a modest Nice side; Louis Saha, André-Pierre Gignac, Karim Benzema, Jimmy Briand (recently returned from long-term injury) and others are all also in the chase for a place on the plane.

But unlike his old friend Patrick Vieira, the only other player remaining in the French squad from their 1998 apogee, Thierry Henry is not a totally busted flush. Any semblance of form – should he be given the opportunity during Barça’s La Liga run-in – will likely be rewarded with selection. It is, perhaps, a little too early to turn out one of France’s favourite footballing sons; even Domenech admits: “I always have faith in great players and Titi is a great player”. But should that be ‘is’ or ‘was’?

Henry hands lucky Domenech a late reprieve

Thierry Henry’s outrageous opportunism will dominate the headlines, as is just, but there is plenty more to disseminate from a memorable night in Paris, as Raymond Domenech’s France were fortunate to qualify for the World Cup in controversial circumstances. Still, as will a thousand-and-one other articles on the issue, that’s where we’ll start.

In the immediate aftermath, words such as “robbed” (Sean St Ledger) and “embarrassing” (Kevin Doyle) were bandied about by the bitterly disappointed Irish players of Henry’s conduct. Giovanni Trapattoni cited Italy’s acrimonious elimination from Korea/Japan 2002 as a similar example of an appallingly unjust exit. It’s to be expected; as emotions are running sky-high when such a gleaming prize is at stake.

St Ledger, who expertly herded the razor-sharp Nicolas Anelka throughout, said that the Barcelona forward’s handling of the ball in the setting-up of William Gallas’ deciding goal had “cost a lot of people their dreams” and, unsurprisingly, called for FIFA to introduce video technology to the game immediately. It was, undoubtedly, a horrifically bitter pill to swallow, yet both players freely admitted that any Irish player would consider doing the same if placed in the same position – a stance also backed by ex-international Ronnie Whelan.

Henry’s own guilt – not exactly evident as he wheeled away in delight at his ill-gotten gains – became apparent when ‘comforting’ the indefatigable Richard Dunne at the final whistle. Awkwardly sitting beside, and then embracing the Ireland centre-half (who showed great sportsmanship to accept the gesture in his moment of despair) Henry looked every inch a man who knew of the upcoming repercussions of his actions upon his proud reputation. ‘Titi’ had clearly made a tit of himself.

Of course, this isn’t the first time some top-grade Henry gamesmanship has earned a vital result for his country. In a World Cup last-16 game the valiant challenge of Spain was undermined by a frankly pathetic dive by the striker. All of which makes his self-pitying touchline rant against referees, Barcelona and UEFA (among others) in the aftermath of Arsenal’s 2006 Champions League final defeat seem all the more hypocritical.

For his most recent misdemeanours, there can be no adequate defence. The first contact between ball and hand could barely be avoided, but the second contact was an instance of bare-faced cheating. Nonetheless, it’s already a moment destined for an unsavoury sort of sporting infamy (will ‘Hand of Henry’ soon enter the footballing lexicon?)

So, what of the game itself? Coming, as it did, on the back of France’s successful excursion to Croke Park last weekend, few expected the first 90 minutes in Paris to transpire as it did. Ireland may not have dominated possession as such, but carved out a whole host of chances, which Robbie Keane, Damien Duff and, most particularly, John O’Shea will rue the spurning of for months and years to come.

Trapattoni’s much-maligned ‘static’ midfield performed to the very limit of its supposedly restricted potential. Damien Duff has carried his sparky Fulham form into recent internationals and was responsible for the old boys’ act – with captain Keane – which gave his team a deserved lead late in the first half. Glen Whelan offered his usual unwavering industry until his withdrawal through injury, while his midfield partner, Blackburn’s Keith Andrews, excelled throughout. Liam Lawrence, still very inexperienced at this level, supplied precision delivery from the right flank and kept Patrice Evra largely subdued during a commanding performance. It was almost enough to make the fans forgive and forget the unfathomable omission of Andy Reid. Almost.

Substitute Darren Gibson showed that he remains a little raw, but has immense promise, as recognised by both Trap and his club manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. Birmingham’s Keith Fahey is also a future contender, while Stephen Reid, of Blackburn, will soon return to the fold. Steven Ireland, mercifully, has called time on his shambolic ‘contribution’ to his country. The only black-spot on the horizon is the potential future decline of such stalwarts as Kevin Kilbane, Duff and Keane, as age takes its inevitable toll. Whether or not these great servants to the cause can continue until 2010 will dictate whether or not Ireland can realistically hope to qualify for the next Euros. The qualified success of this past qualifying series will boost their world ranking and, they will hope, ensure a more comfortable ride on the road to Ukraine/Poland (or wherever it may eventually be).

Whatever its dubious genesis, Gallas’ goal takes France to the World Cup, where they will be dangerous dark-horses. Continuously clueless Raymond Domenech lucked-out in reaching the last World Cup final courtesy of Zinedine Zidane’s heroics, and, now that qualification is sealed, might expect to contend once again. Sure, they were spiritless and shapeless at the Stade de France, but any side which – at full strength – can boast a forward line of Ribéry-Anelka-Henry-Benzema is one to be reckoned with. Jérémy Toulalan will also be a welcome returnee, while Domenech should stick to his guns regarding his exclusion of over-the-hill Patrick Vieira. Goalkeeper Hugo Lloris has already proven his worth and is a star of the future.

Only the coach’s typically obscure selection policy (A-P Gignac starting both games despite a lack of recent goals for Toulouse and a horror-showing in Dublin, while Benzema warmed the bench) can prevent a talented team from reaching at least the later stages of a World Cup which will be littered with unlikely outsiders (North Korea, New Zealand, Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, Honduras, et al).

Their “very, very lucky” qualification (according to Florent Malouda) will fade from French memories once the great football festival kicks off next summer. Ireland, however, will only have bitter acrimony and the sympathies of football fans around the globe to console them as they consider what might have been had the footballing gods looked more kindly upon them.