Thierry Henry in it to win it as he signs with Red Bulls

French football star Thierry Henry said Thursday he had signed with the New York Red Bulls with the aim of winning with his new team.

“It’s a collective game so I’m not going talk about myself. I like to talk about what we can produce as a team. And the most important thing for me is to win,” he told MSNBC television a day after announcing his transfer.

“Wherever I played I wanted to win, so in America, in Spain or England, or France you want to win and you need your teammates to do that.”

The 32-year-old striker is set to make his debut for the Red Bulls in a home friendly on July 22 against English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur.

Henry, who signed the “multi-year” contract after leaving Spanish champions Barcelona, is a World Cup winner with France in 1998 and European champion in 2000.

He joined Barcelona in 2007 from Premier League club Arsenal, where he had established himself as one of the top strikers in the world. But he lost his first-team place with Barca last season, scoring just three goals in 20 matches.

Henry said he was optimistic about the popularity of football in the United States. “I come here like every summer so I’ve seen it changing, year by year, I saw a big difference,” he said.

He also saluted the US team’s performance in the 2010 World Cup, in which they reached the knockout stages before failing to make it into the quarter finals after being defeated by Ghana.

And he welcomed the growing interest here shown by the television audience figures, with the final between Spain and Netherlands becoming the most watched football game in US television history with 24.3 million viewers.

“Nobody would have expected so many viewers for the world cup in the US,” Henry said.