Thierry Henry: Class is Permanent

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit

A piece of me just dies every time I look at this.

Thierry Henry was (is?) the player. The player we wanted to watch.  The player we had to have in our fantasy teams.  The player that could do the impossible and make it look easy.

MLS First Kick

Oh. My. God.

Congratulations to Seattle on their resounding (Sounders. Resounding. Get it?) win over NYRB tonight. But before anyone in the Pacific Northwest gets carried away the NYRB looked... HORRIBLE. They looked like the expansion team. They looked like a pub team. The looked like shit!

Somehow the were crowded out in central midfield where they were playing three - in Rojas (who should have been further upfield), Pietrovalla and Ubiparipovic who were equally abject. For all the pre-season talk of the Red Bulls being built around speed, they played short, careful passes through the midfield. Or tried to. I don't think Richards and JPA had a half dozen touches between them as I don't think there was a ball played forward more than 10 yards until the 54th minute. And I can't begin to count how many passes they misplayed. Too often there were two Red Bulls attacking a ball in midfield, from opposite sides and just getting in each other's way... leaving the ball for Seattle.

Seattle's third goal was typical as the defense dwelt on the ball too long and were too sloppy with their touches, allowing Montero to nip in an finish nicely.

So again, kudos to Seattle for a great performance. Montero looks the real deal. Jaqua was a handful. And in Le Toux, Zakauni, Nyassi and Evans they have plenty of creativity even without Freddie Ljundberg, who will be back soon enough.

As for NYRB it looks back to the drawing board again.

Send me an Angel

Juan Pablo Angel continues to settle into Major League Soccer very nicely. After his goal and assist last weekend won him "Player of the Week" honors, he adds two goals and another assist in NY's win over Chicago tonight.

I haven't seen the match - and to be fair it seems that Chicago had chances - but the Fire need Rolfe back quickly. Against Real Salt Lake would be nice. Especially because I put him in my MLS fantasy lineup hoping he'd make that game, even if, as expected, he'd miss the NYRB match.

Credit where credit is due time -- the MLS fantasy game allows you to designate a captain each week who will earn double points. Yahoo! did this in their World Cup game last summer. It adds a really interesting wrinkle to your decision making and to your rootings. For example, last week Neal and I both had Kenny Cooper in our fantasy sides for Dallas' two games. But Neal made him captain and I didn't. So when Cooper scored the penalty against Chicago I wished he hadn't - even though he was ON MY TEAM! It's a very odd feeling.

I'm happy to report that the tables were turned tonight as JPA was my captain and Neal got a little taste of his own medicine. At least until the weekend when Cooper lines up as captain of Neal's team again. But then I get to root against him whole-heartedly.