For the first time since his training ground altercation with coach Mike Petke, Red Bulls star Thierry Henry spoke to the media. He ostensibly finally addressed the week-old incident, without saying anything of substance at all, claiming it’s all in the past and the Red Bulls are just concentrating on Houston.
“Nothing. My focus is on Houston, that’s the most important thing and that’s it for me,’’ said Henry. “We always have been on the same page, but even more so now. Like I said to you, the way we worked this week was pretty good on what we talked about, and at the end of the day that’s the most important thing. It is a team effort and hopefully we will this competition as a team.’’
Henry and Petke had a dustup last week in practice, with the two having to be separated by the coaching staff. Henry declined talk to the press last Friday on his assigned availability date, then – after conspicuously not starting Saturday’s 2-1 win over archrival DC United – he refused to talk after the game on the grounds that he doesn’t speak to the press when he doesn’t play.
(For the record, he logged 32 minutes off the bench that night.).
Now, going out on the road – where the Red Bulls are just 1-5-1 in their last seven games – they need everybody on the same page.
“Everybody was always on the same page, to be honest with you. Sometimes things rise out of a bad moment,’’ Petke insisted. “Everybody is buzzing right now, we continue – Thierry is fully on board — like I said, I don’t think he ever wasn’t on board. I just think there were some things that we needed to figure out and sometimes it comes out in the wrong ways.
“We’re moved on from it and we’re a better team from it, to be honest with you. I think it was a lot of things, to be honest, a combination of a lot of things, things that are team-related that obviously I’m not going to get into. But I’m being completely serious looking into the camera when I say this – we addressed everything…and guys have a 100 percent understanding now, as well as the coaches do, about what we need to do and everybody is on board.
“What that’s going to translate into? I don’t know, but it’s going to translate into, in my opinion, something better than if we didn’t address things. Listen, I know Thierry now for over three years, he knows me. Something like that was bound to happen, like I said, because he’s a fiery guy and I’m a fiery guy. Something needs to be shaken up sometimes and it was shook up last week. Like I said, to go back to it, we’re a better team for it right now.’’
Does that translate into Henry, the team’s nominal captain, being back in the Starting XI or perhaps even putting the armband on again?
“I don’t know,’’ Henry said in reference to starting Sunday in Houston. “You need to ask the boss [Mike Petke]. I’m available. Like I said so many times, the most important thing is not who plays, but how we play and we can compete.
“I think against D.C. we did that, we did that against [Sporting] Kansas City, somehow in the second half we didn’t do that against Chivas [USA], but the win against D.C. was very important. Now we need to show again that we can go and win in a difficult place. We did that against Kansas City, now we have to do it against Houston.’’