Henry Suspended and New York Tifo Failure

Not directly related to Sporting KC, but some news from Wednesday night's game against New York.

Henry Suspended

It wasn't in the match highlights, but in second half stoppage time as Kansas City was making a substitution before a New York corner, Thierry Henry started to make a run across goal.  When he went past Kei Kamara, he appears to knock heads with Kamara.  Both players go to ground, Kamara holding the side of his head, Henry for some reason, holding the back of his head.  The disciplinary committee reviewed the play today and handed down a 1 game suspension and undisclosed fine for violent conduct that endangered the safety of Kamara.



While the highlights that the league posted as a whole are inconclusive of the contact, the actions and reactions speak quite loud.  First when you watch the highlights, no one else is moving, the play is dead as KC is making a substitution, even the player taking the corner for the Red Bulls is not lined up to strike the ball.  Yet Henry starts to make a run into the box like the ball will be played any second.  He also makes little to no effort to really avoid Kamara while at the same time trying to make it look like he is, similar to the red card he picked up when these two teams met at Livestrong Sporting Park last year when he bowled into the back of Roger Espinoza seeming to lower his knee into Espinoza.  Henry grabbed the back of his head is the second give away, the back of Henry's head was no where near the point of impact with Kamara. There just seemed to be little reason for Henry to be making that run at that time and the way he did unless there was intent.  And that's probably what the DisCo saw.  While the actually headbutt itself is a little inconclusive from the video, the actions and surrounding actions, speak for themselves.

The bad thing about this whole situation may be the reaction of the Red Bulls.  Their game tomorrow is on the road at Gillette Stadium, on turf.  In Henry's time in the league, he's only once played on a field with turf, so the likelihood of him playing tomorrow anyway were already slim.  In fact Hans Backe even said today that he wasn't going to play Henry tomorrow.  So Henry's suspension is for a game he was going to miss anyway.

Tifo Fail Goes Big

For the game in New York, the Red Bulls Supporters had created a minor TIFO for the game, saying "Yo're not in Kansas anymore. SKC no heart, no brain, no courage.  No Wizard can save you now." And yes that spelling is correct as you can see in the above picture.  The Red Bull supporters who made the TIFO misspelled you're.  Just holding it up would have been hilarious to those KC fans in attendance, and the staff that was there for the broadcast of the game, but then the banner got hung at midfield so that it was seen over and over again during the game.  The spelling mistake got picked by multiple different outlets that are poking fun at the sign.  It's been on Yahoo, Deadspin, and was even in ESPN's Not Top 10 this morning.

Remember kids always spell check your work.

League Decisions on Two Situations Affecting this Weekend

Today MLS made two rulings on plays from this past week's game between New York and Dallas. Both plays have big repercussions on this coming weekend's game for the Wizards against FC Dallas. First of all, the most talked about incident from the game this past week, the incident between Thierry Henry and Kevin Hartman after New York had scored to tie the game 1-1. Henry looking to celebrate the goal scored by Mehdi Ballouchy by striking the ball as hard as he could into the back of the net a second time. This was a good 5-10 seconds after the goal, and as Henry ran up, Hartman was walking up to the ball. Henry struck the ball and force of the effort by Henry is what caused the injury. Due to the injury, Hartman is set to miss 2-3 weeks and will not be in net when he takes on the Wizards this weekend in KC. Henry got his punishment today, getting a $2,000 fine, but no suspension. Not surprising, but definitely disappointing that Henry didn't pick up a suspension for his actions. Hartman's agent as the link above shows isn't impressed at all with the decision basically calling the double standard for players like Henry compared to non-marquee players.

The other news regarding Dallas and this weekend's game against the Wizards is that Brek Shea will not be playing in the game. After his red card for his tackle on Chris Albright, Shea shoved another New York player and also gave a shove to the assistant referee. For the tackle and his ensuing dissent, Shea picked up a $750 fine and a second game along with his automatic 1 game suspension for the red card. Shea will now miss Dallas' game this weekend against the Wizards along with their game Wednesday against New England. While the game is still a few days away, the loss of these two players certainly changes the complexion of the game on Saturday.