Brian Mullan/Steve Zakuani incident

Re: Brian Mullin just snapped steve zakuani's leg.

That could work.

 

Re: Brian Mullin just snapped steve zakuani's leg.

I dont think that's a bad idea at all. Maybe they could limit the number of times its used in a season to one.

 

Re: Brian Mullin just snapped Steve zakuani's leg.

... Right! This kid has not been on the pitch for Seattle much before that game and knowing Sigi he will not get much time after that on the starting eleven; but somehow he is part of the team culture? What you are angry about is what Mullin was angry about and that was a non call. If your team had not been diving so much before that contact had happened he may have got the call.

The Mullin incident was retarded. Steve was moving slow because he was towing a Colorado player and Mullin gets a full head of steam- with arms pumping- coming in at a ninty degree angle and jumps into Steve. Only at the point where he was flipped over Mullin by the impact was his arm twisted away from the Rapids player's grasp behind him. Slightly different then the studs up play by the young Seattle player mentioned - that left a bruse(may have; there was a lot of acting going on during that match).

 

Re: Brian Mullin just snapped steve zakuani's leg.

Wow, man. You are just nuts. Here's the tackle:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVySrSYH2VM"]YouTube - Steve Zakuani broken leg[/ame]

Here are some of the tweets:

Arlo White:

Alan Hinton:

Gabriel Zakuani:

Steve was interviewed today:

Obviously there are hundreds more.... Sigi's comment was, ahem, more polite than the Dirty Mullan deserved.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

What did I say that wasn't true or appropriate?

Just because Brian Mullan is a Rapids thug and deserves whatever he gets, you defend his hideous action?

If this was a Galaxy player that did that to Zakuani (and I hate Seattle, btw), I would be just as disgusted and call for the same punishment as I do with your lousy Rapids thug.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

And can we all please stop with the "well, Mullan wouldn't get suspended or punished as badly if Zakuani wasn't hurt. You can't punish the result of the tackle".

BULL. If a guy tries to rob me, shoots me and I die, he gets charged with murder. If he shoots me, and I live he gets attempted...

Brian Mullan purposefully snapped his leg like a tree branch. If he got suspended for life, he'd have no real grounds to complain in my book.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

Yeah he would, Dema Kovalenko.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/...zakuani-injury-kyle-martino-commentary-042511

Kyle Martino issues explanation, apology for his on-air (FSC) reactions after Zakuani injury.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

So was Brian Mullan's comment......


Oh, wait.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

I really don't think Martino said anything wrong at the time.

Not sure why he's apologizing.He didn't break anyone's leg.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

This one?

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

So, just out of curiosity...did you? When Dema Kovalenko did it, over and over again?

I don't believe he broke any legs while he was with the Galaxy, but I know he didn't stop making the kind of challenges that broke Ronnie O'Brien's leg and ended Brandon Pollard's career.

I mean, this is a guy who broke someone's leg with a bad tackle, and then once the guy had finally rehabbed and was back on the field, told him "I'll break your leg again." That's got to be worse than what Mullen said, right?

Every time Dema upended an Earthquake or a Sounder or a Goat, who was lucky enough not to have their leg planted like Zakuani's was and so escaped with bruises rather than fractures, were you really calling for Dema to be suspended and fined "as much as is legally allowed"?

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

Yes,he has to the best of my recollection.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

I think the ultimate comment on the incident came from the guru commentator Bobby McMahon. He stated that it is likely true that Mullan has done this hundreds of times, but that only makes it worse, because "that was not a tackle at all. It was a lunge." He went on to say "It is obvious to me that no one ever took the time to teach Mullan how to tackle." You can get away with that recklessness 100s of times without breaking a leg, but that makes you lucky, not a good tackler. It is the league's fault for allowing Mullan and others to behave like this on the pitch.

McMahon went on to say that the league cannot and should not punish the outcome, even as horrible as this is. Instead, they have to punish the behavior, and do so consistently. If they punish the outcome then they cannot be consistent about how behavior is managed, and it will allow players to tackle like this a hundred MORE times until another incident like this occurs.

That is precisely why I believe a 5 game suspension (in no small part because of the veiled threat that he isn't keen on changing his game behavior) and a heavy fine is probably a good standard for such an unconscionable reckless challenge. You cannot use a standard of "until the player comes back" because it will allow Mullan to get away with this again and again and again simply because no one is getting hurt by the persistent thuggery. The league has to hold all players to a basic standard of behavior, and they simply haven't done a good job of it in the past. Hopefully this is one positive thing that the league can take away from this tragic outcome.

If Mullan does live up to his threat - namely that he will continue to lunge at players like he has done "100s of times" then I hope every MLS fan in every stadium brings the stick for this asshole.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

Except there's zero precendent for that.

There's virtually zero precedent for a 10 game suspension in football...........

Do people remember the Ben Thatcher incident at Man City? While challenging for ball, he viciously and intentionally elbowed Pedro Mendes into the advertising boards. While Mendes lay on the ground unconcious, Thatcher was visibly irate with Mendes. Pedro then suffered a seizure while being taken to the hospital. Not only was the matter investigated by the FA, but the Manchester Police as well.

How many games was Thatcher suspended by the FA? 8 games. [Plus a "suspended" suspension of 15 games............which of course was meaningless. What's a "suspended" suspension? You're either suspended or you're not.]

How long of a suspension was Roy Keane given after admitting to intentially destorying the knee of Alf-Inge Håland? He admitted in his autobiography that it was retribution for Håland's taunting of him years before. 8 games. (3 at the time of the incident, and 5 after the autobiography came out) That's it. For a challenge designed to end the career of a player. (although, it didn't actually end his career as is widely assumed)

I want to throw the book at Mullan, because I think it was a horrific challenge. A 10 game suspension IS throwing the book at a player in MLS based on precedent. Now suspensions dished out by the FA really don't have much relevance to what MLS wants to do. (There have also been plenty of horrific challenges in MLS' past, and they haven't gotten that type of suspension) If they want to suspend him for a longer period, they can do that. But I'd be stunned if they did. This isn't Dema Kovalenko we're talking about here with "priors." Mullan's not going to get some outrageous, crazy, unprecedented suspension. Leagues don't do that. Mostly because, as crazy as it sounds, the MLSPA is going to protect Mullan.......whilst Zakuani is simultaneously lying in a hospital bed.

Seattle fans aren't going to like it........but be prepared to be very angry about the suspension. I want 10 games, but I bet he gets 5. And for all the reasons mentioned above. You have to send a message that this type of behavior can't be tolerated........whether a player gets injured or not. But you also have to suspend a player in accordance to league rules and precedent.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

Then my Seattle friends seriously need to change their perspective here. It is vital that we punish Mullan's poor show of character on the field for lunging at a player, not for the relative outcome to the victim, because that is unpredictable and unmanageable. The critical focus is to demand league-wide change, and the only way to do this is through a consistent focus on behavior, not on injury. It is important to take Mullan at his word, namely that he is perfectly satisfied with his piss-poor tackling technique simply because he was getting away with it his entire career.

If instead, we focus on suspending players 2 or 3 games for lunging challenges even when the victim doe not get hurt, only then will we remove the hack job goon players from MLS.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

Post a quote, right now, where I defended Mullan's actions. Yeah, didn't think so.

But suspending him for as much as legally allowed? The MLS Disciplinary Committee can suspend players for as long as they want, so you're essentially calling for a lifetime ban. That's not a reasonable response.

So if Mullan did it its OK? Think about that statement in the context of this thread.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

And I'd be OK with a precedent-setting suspension for Mullan IF MLS follows it up like this. But its not fail to the players of the league, Mullan, or the Rapids to throw Mullan under the bus for 10+ games without making the significant changes that kind of precedent would call for. If they suspend Mullan for 10 games and the next guy to make a lunging tackle like that gets a standard red card and 1 game suspension the player swill know they can get away with those tackles as long as they aren't unlucky enough to break a leg, and in 3 years we'll be doing this all over again when another leg is snapped.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

3 years?

Trust me.........they'll be doing it again next week. I'm not kidding when I say that we see thse kinds of awful challenges in MLS on a semi-regular basis. The victim just doesn't break their leg in 99.9% of the cases.

There's gotta be a sustained effort by MLS COACHES, PLAYERS, AND FRONT OFFICE PERSONNEL to elimitate this from the game. The refs can only do so much. I've watched games recently in which I would have ended up red-carding 6-7 players based on their awful behavior. If the refs actually gave a card for every cardable challenge in some games, there wouldn't be players left on the field. (and then we'd have high school drop-outs like David Beckham crucifying the refs in the press.) The Dallas-Colorado game a few weeks ago was a nice display of how the game shouldn't be played (from both sides.) It's unwatchable garbage. There were uncarded challenges in that game that would have made MMA fighters blush. At some point we the fans need to stand up also and say we're not going to tolerate that kind of play in our league. Maybe we're immune to it due to years of watching (and even glorifying) players like Joey Franchino, Dema Kovalenko, etc. that are literally hack jobs. (Those two just came to my mind. Every team has had them) There's a way to play intelligent defensive soccer without resorting to the types of tackles that I see on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, we have too many players in this league that don't have the talent to do that. But they linger in the league for years and years and years for reasons I cannot begin to fathom.

[Ironically, of course, I've never thought of Brian Mullan as one of these thugs. But if people out there watched that Dallas-Colorado game, they could have seen this coming.]

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

He's apologizing for his poor performance in his job. He said he blinked when the tackle happened. This is something a commentator would never ever do on a soccer match.

Is he the one that said "Mullan is not a dirty player, ... blah ... blah ... blah"?

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

I meant 3 years as a reasonable period of time before we likely see another broken leg.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

Quit being so dramatic. Mullen isn't a dirty player. It was a reckless challenge, no doubt. And it was a horrible injury. You could hear the bone snap in real time. But I'd be my left nut that there was no intent to injure Zakuani, or take him out.

Mullen was late, he was reckless, and unfortunately Zakuani's leg got planted in the ground, hence the double break.

I agree that there should be a long suspension, but people really need to look at this incident for what it was...a freak injury that was the result of reckless play.

I think Jasonma said it pretty good. The problem is, that challenge from Mullen doesn't break Zakuani's leg 9 times out of 10. So what's the solution? A ten game suspension for every tackle that could potentially have seriously injured someone?

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

Of course we saw David Ferreira's ankle destroyed the next night. (not the same type of challenge, but still a bad one.)

If we're going to eliminate this style of play from MLS, unfortunately, the league office is going to have to make an example of somebody. They need to start somewhere.

And they're not going to do it to a golden child like David Beckham (who's had some horrific tackles this season & then whined about the cards). They're going to do it to a player like Brian Mullan. A player who's well known enough to get everybody's attention, but not an elite player in this league (anymore). In reality, if he's suspended for 5-10 games, Colorado can get by just fine. Especially since 10 teams make the playoffs............and Colorado's gonna be one of those 10 teams with or without Mullan. He's more of a squad player at this point in his career...........

And I'm really tired of people saying.............."eh, get over it. This is part of soccer. You see challenges like that in every league in the world." Just because the FA allows de Jong to run around breaking legs, doesn't mean we need to accept it as part of MLS. The good news from the de Jong situation is that the Dutch FA took a stance even though he didn't play in Holland. The coach didn't call de Jong up for quite a long period after the Ben Arfa challenge. Would Bob Bradley and the USSF make the same stand? Maybe........ While Ricardo Clark was suspended for his kicking of Carlos Ruiz.......Bob didn't call him up to the USMNT. And I hope that trend continues.

I'm gonna leave my discussion on this topic to this. I expect a ~5 game suspension. There really isn't precedence in MLS for more than that. That's probably reasonable based on the nature of the challenge. I don't believe it was pre-meditated, or that Mullan intentionally hurt Zakuani. It was simply a terrible challenge, that shouldn't be tolerated in this league by anybody. While I expect ~5 games, I also wouldn't be shocked if the league decided to make an example of Mr. Mullan.

 

Re: Brian Mullin/Steve Zakuani incident

And I think that's what most Rapids fans are arguing for. I think pretty much everyone is in agreement that it was a horrific challenge that's deserving of a ~5 game suspension at a minimum. It's the calls for a 10-15 game suspension that seem a bit over the top, considering the precedent.





The above was a 2 game suspension, even with Shea pushing an official in the melee afterward.



This was a 1 game suspension.

I'm sure we can find tons of screen caps of terrible challenges that either didn't get a suspension or were only 1-2 game suspensions.

Look, I have no problem with Mullan getting a hefty suspension for what happened to Zakuani. But MLS has to be more punishing from here on out - the kinds of tackles shown above need to start being a 3 game suspension at the minimum. I think MLS would take big strides to solving this problem by instituting a 3 game automatic suspension for a straight red card for serious foul play or violent conduct.