Friday, September 21, 2012

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.

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