Seattle Sounders star Steve Zakuani looks set to miss the rest of the 2011 season after suffering a horrific broken leg early in Friday's Colorado-Seattle match.
Rapids midfielder Brian Mullan broke Zakuani's leg when he raced in on a reckless challenge just seconds after being involved in a sequence where he felt he was fouled. Mullan raced in on Zakuani, who was dribbling down the sideline, and crashed into Zakuani's planted right leg, which was clearly broken by the challenge. Mullan was immediately issued a red card.
We'll update with an official diagnosis of the injury as soon as one is made available.
In case you missed it and want to see the challenge, you can see it after the jump (Be warned, the challenge is not for the squeemish):
Typical of the crap ugly way that COlorado plays. Ban Mullin for the year and fine the club
*sorry, not you fjoro but Punjabi*
Wow, you and ESC must’ve killed your own pets as children…you both need help!
All of them…Martino deserves just as much blame. Amateur handling of the situation by Fox.
yeah right, MLS would be really smart to abandon the league’s best fans for a rathole like Baltimore? Nice try buddy…
I should also add that Zakuani wasnøt even in 2nd gear, as he was still tryin to shake off Kimura, so an excuse that mullan miscalculated the timing of the tackle is without merit.
The FSC announcers should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of commenting on the severity of what Mullan did. If you don’t have the balls to call out somebody you are friends with then you don’t belong in a commentators job. Really poor job wynalda, sullivan and JPD. Martino at least said it to a degree.
Yur a reel gud spellr.
Have fun sucking your own d1ck tonight.
That sucks…for The Congo…
The angle that Mullan took towards Zakuani left little doubt that he was going in to make a dirty tackle
It reminds me a lot of what was being said about Shawcross last year, now he has spent this year racking up plenty more yellow and red cards.
@ SBI, I guess that is true. I just get fed up with the publicizing of horrific injuries. Like I remember last year when espnoccernet had a picture of aaron ramsey’s terrible injury on the front page. I guess people do not have to see the zakuani injury since you did put a little disclaimer above the video and are not shoving a picture down our throats.
All Seattle players and “fans” deserve a broken leg.
I hope so…As a former player, he should be condemning what happened. Instead he feels sorry for the innocent Mullen…
Great job Mullen! It’s just too bad you didn’t take out Montero or Alonzo.
and he is having surgery presumably to insert metal rods into his leg.
he is gone for the season if not longer
Maybe that’s why ESPN dumped JP. Martino will be looking for work in the morning.
Your mom is soft, troll.
And saying that he is getting x-rays to see what happened…It was completely obvious
I watched the replay a bunch of times, it actually looks to be a horrific accident. It’s half to blame on #27 Kamura. In trying to win the ball back, Kamura pushes Zakuani to the right which also pushes him into the Mullan tackle. At the last moment Zakuani tries to control the ball with his right foot to push it over the oncoming tackle. To me, it’s an unfortunate mistake. No intent. Just sloppy
Bingo!!!
Full thumbs down on the FSC announcers for darn near condoning this action by saying several times “Mullan isn’t that type of player”, or words to that extent. Arguably the most horrific and unnecessary challenge and injury in MLS history!
Imagine if this happened to Beckham or Donovan….Get hacks like this out of the league!
The Sounder response was awful. I didn’t want them to retaliate, but they hardly showed concern even after Colorado continued their physical play. Seattle is soft…
If Garber needs any incentive, maybe he should imagine Drogba considering MLS for a summer loan, then reconsidering after looking that piece of sh1t.
Too bad Casey wasn’t available to bang skulls with anybody. Give Mullan a one game suspension, then send him out. Yeah, he’s real sorry now.
HOW CAN MLS MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF MULLAN?
Suspend him until July 15, then force Colorado to start him in Seattle on the 16th.
The guy deserve the public shame and ridicule that 36,000 fans will give him.
Mullan is the scum of the Earth.
Yes. FSC handled with a lack of class. Instead they feel sorry for Mullen. Despicable!
Confirmed, tibia and fibula.
I don’t know if I’d go that far.
He certainly intended to cause pain, I don’t know if it’s patently clear that he wanted to cause injury.
I can CERTAINLY see why you say that, but I don’t know if I agree.
As nasty as that “tackle” was, it was a love tap in comparison to some of Roy Keane’s finest.
Main thing is…the punishment should be such that it makes it clear that that sort of tackle has no business in the league.
But to look at it from a different angle, if a guy assaulted a surgeon in a bar and broke the surgeon’s hand, you can bet the surgeon would sue the brawler for all he’s worth.
I’d say the league should give him at least a 5 game suspension (I’d prefer 8), and the club should fine him a week’s wages.
… and at least 50 hours community service.
No, he was complaining about how he got the ball….worthless hack
Yes, indeed. What is even mores disturbing is all of the Fox announcers talking about how their friend Mullen isn’t a dirty player. What matters is that it was an extremely dirty challenge. He made himself look like a talentless hack. He couldn’t handle the challenge by the Seattle defender and then he got up and took it out on one of the more talented players in the league. This makes the league look really bad. Even with Houston, Mullen has always been a marginal talent. I hope players like this are pushed out as the league continues to improve.
That would require technically better players…
Too many comments to read them all but for blatantly reckless challanges, I’m in the ban for as long as the other chap is injured camp. Get well soon Steve
Man, I’m so sad for Zakuani. He was just getting better and better with every game and has so much potential, and then something like this happens.
I just don’t know how much punishment is enough for the offender. Mullan will hopefully get a lengthy suspension for this, but he just put a talented young player’s career in jeopardy.
Or maybe having to live with the disgrace of having intentionally hurting another player for the rest of your life is punishment enough … if he indeed feels bad about it.
on purpose?
Hasn’t anyone told you?
ROIDS MAN$#@!
Great post! I’m doing it now.
I said could and physically he will obviously recover but mentally it can be a simply giant hurtle to overcome. Some players are never able to go into tackles fully again.
WishMLS was more like Spanish soccer instead of that hack England style. MLS would get more fans if they quit this overly physical crap n get more technical.
I agree they should not show the replay. Although I don’t think Zakuani’s career is over. He is very young and can recover from this.
That wasn’t a rash challenge.
A rash challenge would be going in hard on a 50/50 or coming in late to get the ball.
Getting up, pissed off, and sprinting at the closest opposing player with the ball with a clear intent to injure them is not rash, it’s an end of your career worthy tackle. He left the ground and put his entire body’s weight into the side of a man’s legs. This wasn’t a rash soccer challenge, it was assault.
I sufferred tib/fib in November and just got out of the boot a week ago, and still am 8 weeks from being able to even think about running. He will have a rod and a couple of screws, assuming no manor complications like muscle damage he will be out until next season.
Most painful thing I have experienced and about liked when it happened tonight. Doc have said I can play again even though I am an out of shape 40 year old.
American media should be ashamed with how much they are showing this replay. Take a cue from the Brits who never show replays of horrific injuries. This guys career could be over, be ashamed
(SBI-The incident is news and just because you didn’t want to see it or think it shouldn’t be viewed doesn’t mean the masses should be forced to live by your standard.)
Todd bertuzzi punched someone in the back of the head and ended their career. So because the player Rodgers punched didn’t break their neck or get a concusion it is all of the sudden soooo much different? I think ALL dirty play needs to be eliminated by first being punished. This is the perfect form to discuss punishing reckless acts of violence.
Here’s the thing: Mullan’s intent was never to win the ball. In my book, there’s a big difference between a reckless challenge and a malicious challenge, and Mullan clearly crossed that line.
Since Mullan’s intent was always to foul hard, and never to win the ball, I have to agree with Ives that he deserves a harsher punishment than Rico received. Rico’s kick to the arm was never going to end Ruiz’s season; Mullan knew, or should have known, that seriously injuring Zakuani was a real possibility.
5 games just isn’t enough.
As long as the break is clean, meaning a simple fracture only in one part of the bones, it will be a easier repair/rehab…. If multiple breaks are in each bone, surgery and screws/plates will need to be used, prolonging the recovery. Either way prayers should be with Zakuani.
I think you will see more like a 10 game suspension, he had clear intention to put in a severely harsh tackle. He knew exactly what he was doing, I doubt he wanted to break someone’s leg but he wanted to mess someone up. Also if memory serves (I refuse to watch the incident again) he lost his cool after it and started yelling at other players. Got a bit of the red mist going on.
Because the leg is broken he should be out 15, if I wasn’t a tackle like that should be 3 games with no hesitation.
this isn’t about you, DC United. Pipe down and get back to packing your things for Baltimore.