Thierry Henry leaves Premier League for MLS; Can Red Bulls Capitalize on Beckham-like Acquisition?

- photo credit Matthews/AP, via NY Daily News

This week, failed French hero and 32-year-old forward for the Tottenham Hotspurs (English Premier League) announced he has signed with the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer. The headline from most casual soccer fans is that Thierry Henry has thus officially declared himself a has-been by signing with the much weaker MLS (even 28-year-old U.S. star Landon Donovan is having second thoughts about ending his remaining prime years in Los Angeles).

But the question for MLS fans is whether signing an aging-but-star striker like Henry, fresh off a disappointing World Cup performance, will yield better results for NY than the signing of former Real Madrid/Man U star David Beckham did for LA. For those of you who have been wondering why you haven't heard about Beckham recently, other than watching him look depressed (and yet dapper) on the sidelines while England got served by Germany, the $32 million Galaxy player tore his Achilles tendon while on loan to AC Milan, and is out for the whole season. Injury and fitness issues have plagued Beckham's time at the Galaxy, as have questions about his commitment given multiple loans and perceived lack of effort, infamously earning him boos an an altercation with a fan.

Will the story be different for Henry, who also formerly played for a perennial Premier League contender (Arsenal) and in La Liga (Barca)? Or will he suffer similar problems of ego, age, and inflated fan expectations? Just as Beckham entered a club that already featured a star at the same position (Donovan at midfielder), so too will Henry, who will be teammates with fellow striker and frequent Golden Boot contender Juan Pablo Angel. With a new soccer-specific stadium and an impressive season thus far from a previously bottom of the barrel team (the Red Bulls are second in the East, a decent enough performance to make the playoffs), the timing is right for the New York club to really make a push as a real soccer town. Whether Henry will be a key part of that push shall be determined very soon.

And The Stage is Set: Round of 16 Preview

The final games of group play have finished, and the elimination rounds of the 2010 World Cup are now set! Spain fought back from their surprise loss to Switzerland with a big 2-1 win over Chile, propelling themselves to the top of Group H and avoiding a Round of 16 matchup against Brazil, who faces Chile instead. Interesting fact, Chile gave up 7 goals to Brazil in their two matches during World Cup qualifying; not exactly the best record you want when facing the #1 team in the world.

How did the various continents do? Well, Europe did worse than last time around, and the rest of the world did better:

Europe - 6 (down from 10 in 2006)
South America - 5
CONCACAF (N. & C. Am., Caribbean) - 2
Asia - 2
Africa - 1
Oceania - 0

And who has the easiest path to the semi-finals, and who has the hardest? Let's look at the brackets (using pre-World Cup FIFA Rankings):

Weakest: #14 USA v. #32 Ghana, #16 Uruguay v. #47 S. Korea
#2 Spain v. #3 Portugal, #31 Paraguay v. #45 Japan
#1 Brazil v. #18 Chile, #4 Netherlands v. #34 Slovakia
Strongest: #6 Germany v. #8 England, #7 Argentina v. #17 Mexico

Things look good for Team USA; they are in the weakest bracket by far, and while Ghana is the strongest team in Africa and Uruguay is the original power team, the Yanks are fully capable of winning their bracket up to the semi-finals if they play the way they did back in the Confederations Cup, where they beat Spain in the semi-finals and went up 2-0 over Brazil in halftime of the finals, only to give up 3 goals in the second half. We may see a rematch of that Confederations Cup finals (held in South Africa last year), as Brazil and the USA are on the same side of the brackets, able to meet up in the semi-final match. But it won't be a cakewalk for Brazil, either; though they are heavily favored to trounce Chile yet again, they haven't looked in top form yet this World Cup (though all signs suggest they're just waiting for the elimination rounds to play their real game, which should blow us all away), and may face European powerhouse Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

On the other side, the toughest trek by far will be where perennial European powerhouses Germany and England face off. Both are playing some of the ugliest football we've ever seen them play, with England finishing second in Group C after being unable to beat Algeria and drawing with the Americans (sort of like the War of 1812). Not only should that first match be a knock-down, drag-out street fight, but the winner of the derby faces red-hot Argentina, who is one of the few teams who look like they're ready to win the whole thing, maybe even more so than Brazil. And don't count out Mexico, which has been playing like a top 10 team and may be the Cinderella story of this World Cup. Whoever comes out of this strongest group will probably face the winner of Iberian neighbors Spain and Portugal. Spain has definitely not looked like the European champions so far, with star Liverpool striker Fernando "El Nino" Torres still scoreless and an apparent inability to convert on strong chances. UEFA Euro 2008 hero David Villa (Valencia) has stepped up, though, and it will be interesting to see whether he continues to be the big finisher for La Roja (who confused me by wearing blue today in their final group match).

Portugal, too, has been lackluster, with the biggest disappointment being the lack of goals from international superstar Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) (especially after the epic Nike ad campaign). In 270 minutes, Ronaldo has hit the back of the net just once, of seven Portuguese goals. If Spain is in top form, we'll see Barca-inspired dominance of possession, meaning fewer chances for Portugal. Ronaldo will have to execute on the opportunities he does have if he hopes to make the Nike ads into a reality.

But here back home, all eyes are just focused right now on USA v. Ghana. By all measures, the USA is favored, but that's not how the World Cup works. Emotions will be running high; Ghana and the US were both in the same group in 2006, and the African Cup Champions nabbed the second slot out of group play behind Italy (remember when Italy used to make it out of group play), with Ghana beating the US 2-1 in the final group play match, sending the Yanks home and dooming Americans to another four years of pretending that the world cares about MLB's World Series. As always, Team USA has a lot to prove to proto-fans at home, and there is never a venue better than the World Cup to teach Americans to love soccer. But the Black Stars will be under a lot of pressure as well; not only are they looking to make another run in the World Cup, they're now the only remaining African team in the first African World Cup in history. It's a lot of pressure from an entire continent, and while the players and coaches claim to welcome it, how they handle it come tomorrow is yet to be seen.

Saturday
Uruguay v. South Korea, 10am EDT, 7am PDT, ESPN
USA v. Ghana, 2:30pm EDT, 11:30am PDT, ABC

Sunday
Germany v. England, 10am EDT, 7am PDT, ESPN
Argentina v. Mexico, 2:30pm EDT, 11:30am PDT, ABC

Monday
Netherlands v. Slovakia, 10am EDT, 7am PDT, ESPN
Brazil v. Chile, 2:30pm EDT, 11:30am PDT, ESPN

Tuesday
Paraguay v. Japan, 10am EDT, 7am PDT, ESPN
Spain v. Portugal, 2:30pm EDT, 11:30am PDT, ESPN

UEFA Champions League Final: Bayern Munich v. Inter Milan

Last year, for the first time ever, the UEFA Champions League Final, which showcases the best soccer clubs in the world, was the most watched sporting event, drawing 109 million viewers worldwide, 3 million more than the Super Bowl.

I'm going to predict that this year won't be a repeat for that title.

With FC Barcelona's loss today to FC Internazionale Milano (a.k.a. Inter) on a 2-3 aggregate score in the seminfinals, the May 22 final matchup is set, pitting Inter against Bundesliga powerhouse FC Bayern Munich (a.k.a. Bayern). And while both teams are playing incredible football, there's no way this is the matchup that UEFA executives could have been hoping for. While Bayern is by far the dominant club of the Bundesliga, it very much defines itself as a German club, and the appeal outside of the German-speaking is somewhat self-limited. Of their 23 man roster, a full 13 are German, an incredibly high ratio of home grown players for the modern European club, and a big barrier to creating excitement for the team outside the home market. Only two non-Germans are part of the Bayern hall of fame, and until 2008, every Bayern captain has been German (the current captain, Mark van Bommel, is Dutch). Not exactly a recipe for international appeal.

Inter is a different story, as it fits closer to the mold of the modern European team. Its squad is, true to its name, international, with only 5 of 23 players on the roster Italians, and with four Argentinians and four Brazilians making an impressive South American contingent. And the club is definitely no stranger to the international stage, having won the Champions League title twice and the newer UEFA Europa League title three times. But despite its claim to fame of being the only Italian club never to have been relegated out of Serie A, a century long history including 17 Serie A titles and five Copa Italia championships, the fact remains that Inter is overshadowed by the two behemoths of Italian football: "The Old Lady" of Juventus and PM Silvio Berlusconi's AC Milan. Juventus (a.k.a. Juve) is a dynasty, the most successful team in Italian football, with 27 Serie A titles and 9 Copa Italia championships since the club's inception in 1897. AC Milan (a.k.a. Milan), on the other hand, is one of those teams that can buy players, and thus arguably championships, at whim, thanks to its Italian billionaire/playboy/prime minister owner. The results for AC Milan have been telling; at 11 Champions League final appearance with 7 championships resulting, Milan is only second to Real Madrid in reaching the highest pinnacle of European football. With competition like Juve and Milan, Inter will forever struggle for media shares, both abroad and at home (especially since, at home, Berlusconi owns such a large share of the media).

Contrast this to 2009's Champions League final, which pit Manchester United against FC Barcelona. The overtones were epic, to say the least. For those of you unfamiliar to soccer, Man U is the equivalent of the Yankees. They are the richest team, the most willing to sell out, and among the winningest, all of which have helped them transform themselves into the epitome of the modern European football club, which is a global commercial enterprise. Compare that, if you will, to Barcelona. Barca is the only European club who has never sold their jersey space to a sponsor, and actually never had anything other than their club badge on their jersey from 1899 to 2006, when they actually paid UNICEF, the UN children's aid agency, for the right to wear the humanitarian organization's name on the front of their uniforms. They are, in other words, the exact opposite of Man U, a team dedicated to ideals and beautiful football, bizarrely famous for their beautiful passing game and the ability to dominate possession time. Thus, they have also transformed themselves into a modern European football club, an equally global commercial enterprise, just one that sells based on its often self-congratulatory goodness (As an aside, this is a particularly strange notion, Barca as a global club, given that the organization is self-described and avowedly provincial, dedicated to their native Catalan). I will thus submit that the 2009 UEFA Champions final was only in part a function of the growing worldwide popularity of the tournament, driven in part by the above described internationalization of European soccer clubs. It was, however, mostly driven by the incredible storylines that Man U and Barca presented. Barca's 2-0 victory over Man U in the final, after all, was also part of the incredible season that makes Barca the only team ever to win 6 for 6 titles in a single year (La Liga, Copa del Rey, Supercopa de Espana, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, and the 2009 FIFA Club World Cup).

There's simply no way Bayern versus Inter can live up to all that.