Brian Mullan hasn't had much to celebrate individually this season, but that all changed in a big way Friday night.
While Mullan's tackle that broke Steve Zakuani's leg will likely remain his defining moment of the season, his long-range goal against the Columbus Crew was the defining moment of the match, unlocking a scoreless game and lifting the Colorado Rapids to a 2-0 victory at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.
After a Colorado piece of possession, Mullan found himself facing the goal with loads of space after Columbus failed to close in on him. He took his chance and caught it all, rifling a blast into the upper left-hand corner of the goal from about 30 yards out in the 54th minute.
Omar Cummings added an insurance goal in the 79th minute, taking a pass from Sanna Nyassi on a counterattack and hitting a first-time shot from the right past Crew goalkeeper Will Hesmer to ice the game.
Defending MLS Cup champion Colorado (9-6-10, 37 points) improved to 3-0-1 since losing striker Conor Casey for the season to injury and trails Seattle by just one point for the Western Conference's third automatic playoff berth, although the Sounders have two games in hand.
Columbus (9-7-7, 34 points), whose best chance to score was an Andres Mendoza shot from inside the area that was saved by Matt Pickens in the 74th minute, fell in its first game since claiming sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference.
Highlights from the match can be seen here.
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What did you think of the match? Did you think Mullan had that ability in him? Can you see the Rapids continuing to contend without Casey?
Share your thoughts below.
Mullan has a Championship Ring for every finger of his right hand….Bling Bling. How many rings are there total on the Sounders? (Honest question…not trying to set you off.)
What seems to baffle about DeJong is that he is an extremely talented player (certainly far above Mullan’s level)and is apparently well liked by his fans at Man City as well as off the field.
Do you realise he has received only one red card in his professional career and that was back in 2005-2006?
A defensive midfielder is expected to get into a lot of scrapes and cards but DeJong has been involved with an exceptional number high profile incidents. Either he is very unlucky or he is nuts.
I still don’t rate him as intimidating as Hristo Stoichkov or Roy Keane. But then again, I don’t have to get on the field with him.
Think rory already covered this (below) before you posted it. I’m with him.
However I am with you in this one point:
“Its not as if he was DeJong”
You hit the nail right on the head with that one.
Seattle’s Sigi Schmid.
“I’ve coached Brian Mullan,” said Schmid, who coached Mullan with the LA Galaxy. “He’s an aggressive player. No player goes into a tackle like that trying to hurt a player. He’s an aggressive player and it happens.”
Yo, Nurse: “He had a broken fibula and a broken tibia. For the tibia what they do when it’s a serious injury sometimes is put a rod or nail in there, so that’s what they’ve had to do for that. The fibula should heal by itself; I think it wasn’t displaced. So that’s the main thing. It’s probably similar to the injury Aaron Ramsey suffered last year for Arsenal on the tackle from Shawcross. It’s similar to that and what Eduardo suffered as well for Arsenal — although it’s higher up on the shin. That’s good because if it’s lower to the ankle that just provides another complication.” -S. Schmidt-
Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good argument.
“silliness”?
Bill Buckner was a pretty damm fine MLB player but all anyone remembers is THAT error.
Tiger Wooods was not too bad at golf but all anyone talks about is his infidelity and subsequent meltdown.
People, especially SBI fans, love to focus on the negative.
Mullan was an average player who committed a very above average, brutal,heinous foul. Most people never heard of him before then. Its not as if he was DeJong who happens to be a very high level player, nasty rep aside.
That foul exceeded anything good Mullan ever did in terms of notoriety.
If he goes on to an exceptional career then people may forget but otherwise he is stuck with it.
I was simply asking what it was those 2 coaches you were referencing to said.
You said what his former coach and Zakuanni’s current coach said about Mullan.
I was guessing you meant Kinnear when you said his former coach, so who was it then?
Out of curiosity, are Seattle fans still going to be blaming the Rapids for the downfall of civilization when Dec, 21 2012 hits? *rolls eyes*
Cheers, MLS refs BLOW! lol
Would love to make the trip out to Commerce one day, a very good friend of mine I use to work with is part of the supporters I think they might be RTD or something????