There has been a lot of chat about crime and punishment, referee culpability, and the impact (bad) on the quality of play when a star player has his leg broken. I am trying to find a comprehensive list of all such injuries in MLS since 1996. FC Dallas - (1999 Pollard, 2003 O'Brien, 2008 Cooper, 2011 Ferriera) Seattle - (2011 Zunika) RSL - (2011 Morales) Seems like there were 3 or 4 more.
I believe the stat your looking for is called a "Kovalenko," which is the Sabermetric term for "broken leg caused." It should be out there on the internet somewhere.
If you don't know how to spell someones name, it isn't hard to look it up. Probably a good idea to do that, especially when making the first post of a thread. How you butchered Zakuani so bad, I have no idea.
Don't have the stats but I can list one... FCD super goal keeper Kevin Hartman's ACL was torn by a celebration ritual from Thierry Henry video link [ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UiK7rzGcMA[/ame]
Poor Zakuani, first Mullen-ed now butchered By the way, any news on his recovery? We need him back asap
That Hartman thing is a) not a broken leg and b) not really the same thing as the Ferreira/Zakuwhoozit/Morales plays. Preston Burpo had a gruesome leg fracture in a 50/50 challenge with Dane Richards last year. No malice in it but it was ugly.
mea culpa - I knew I should have looked it up I know that Stoichkov broke the leg of a college player in a preseason friendly, and there was another incident around the same time with a preseason leg fracture rumored to have been the result of a Kovalenko tackle in practice. Surely, there were a few other incidents in the past where a leg was broken prior to 2011 where Kovalenko was not involved. (p.s. Gamekid2k - Hartman was injured, but his leg was, thankfully. not broken.)
Steve Ralston had a fractured tibia from a tackle by Herc Gomez a few years back, though it wasn't a horror tackle or anything. Just came to mind.
Wait... what? Hartman's ACL wasn't torn. He had an MCL injury and was back for the playoffs. Shouldn't you know this stuff as an FC Dallas fan?
Earlier this month, albeit an Open Cup match, DC United's Designated Player Branko Boskovic had his leg snapped and his ACL torn by NE Revolution's Alan Koger in the MLS signature trademark style of a slide tackle from behind. Don't worry, they really got even with Koger. They issued him a big ole yellow card. That will for sure teach him a lesson.
"Leg snapped"?? Do you mean that he has a broken bone? Everything I have read says that his ACL is torn, not that a bone snapped. I'm not sure what the value of this thread is, but it looks to me like it's being taken as an opportunity for some fans to whine about all the injustices served upon their team.
Haig - I started the thread because I wanted to find out what injuries (broken bones) had occurred over the history of MLS. I have searched for this information and could not find it. We used to have a forum just for Stats, but I don't see it now. So I posted in the News and Analysis forum in the hopes that a few folks with the knowledge or information would post for their team. There has been a lot of talk about how physical the league is. I would like to get a set of facts together that can be used to analyze trends or generalize behaviors. It seems to me that there have been more violent conduct injuries this year than in the league's history for the first 14 years.
You're right, at least partly. I see that it was a torn ACL and a hairline fracture. Hardly "snapped" in the sense that other players mentioned above suffered, with total breaks in the tibia and fibula, but certainly a significant injury. I can think of Seth Stammler and Nansha Kolonji as Metro players who had broken legs. If we are applying the hairline fracture criteria then add Mathis, Ramos, Danny Hernandez, Manny Lagos, and Dane Richards to the list.