Henry's Second Fall from Grace

I don't know if you saw what irish public enemy number one has done in the MLS, and if you weren't paying attention you probably didn't because the MLS gets less coverage than an ACC prevent defense in the final 2 minutes of the 2nd quarter. For whatever reason all the circumstances and oddities of the actual incident intruigued me, so I couldn't help but write something about it.

Anyhoo, Thierry basically put the Dallas "feel the slow" Burn keeper out of commission for some time by needlessly kicking a ball into his foot whilst the game was stopped. Here's a pretty opinionated piece on it here, and I'm not rushing to Henry's defense, not in the least, but I figured I could at least talk out what actually happened and then we'd go from there.

So now that you've watched it, is Henry to blame? Obviously. Should there be repercussions? Probably, (in fact there already have been, Henry was fined a laughable 2,000 dollars). But I think what matters most in assinging guilt and what you have to account for in these situations is intent. No one can argue that it was Henry's intention to injure the player. Compare this to LaGarrette Blount's infamous haymaker last fall, and it's night and day. Where in all the Boise State player got for his troubles was a sore jaw, this poor keeper is facing up to a year on the sidelines, not to mention seriously hindering his team's playoff chances and potential revenue. That's where Dallas' lawsuit comes in.

It isn't such a preposterous idea that they should be entitled to some type of financial compensation for their misfortune, but if I were in charge, I'd simply shrug my shoulders and tell them tough luck. This did happen after all, on the field of play, during a game.

But what is so strange, is that this happened in a deadball situation which are so few and far between in soccer, that no one really knows how to handle it. I've seen hundreds of worse ankle-breaking Joey Barton type tackles go unpunished and yet Henry's albeit pointless kick wouldn't have hurt a fly if it weren't for a flukish happenstance of the keeper's foot being in the way.

I don't know how Theirry's really getting on the MLS, because I don't follow it at all, and the fact that this wasn't even picked up by espn, or soccernet just tells you how miniscule the amount of attention soccer gets when compared to american football, especailly in September. But I cannot help but look at Henry at the end of this video and assume by his body language that he's gotta be wondering why the hell he ever came to New York, to play soccer.