I titled a post a few days ago “What sort of league is this?”, today the league office answered that. They are a league that wants to protect it’s players.

The league delivered a message today when it handed Mullan a 10 game ban and a $5000 fine. Playing the player rather than the ball is unacceptable, keep the game clean.

The 10 game suspension matches the ban given to Ricardo Clark for his stomp of FC Dallas’ Carlos Ruiz in 2007. At the time the Don said “In taking this action, Major League Soccer is sending a signal that it will not accept reckless and dangerous behavior on its fields,”

Well here we are four seasons later and this time it was for an on-the-ball incident rather than after play was blown dead. Zakuani never saw the reckless tackle coming and certainly did nothing to provoke it (as some agued Ruiz did).

The league has sent a message that players need to be protected from violent tackles. It’s something that has no place in the game, the league does not want players to take out frustrations in this way and the punishment is substantial enough to hopefully make players think twice before in the future.

As has been stated Mullan is a hard player, but not a dirty one. He was last Friday night, and is going to pay for the choice he made. Watching the game and then the replay while I don’t believe he meant to hurt Zakuani, I do think he wanted to send a message.

The league office stated, “Mullan’s tackle is the type of play we need to eliminate from our game and the level of discipline is consistent with our efforts to do so.”

“In making this decision, the Committee took several factors into account: the timing of the challenge, the location on the field, the moments immediately before the challenge where it is clear that Mullan is frustrated and the severity of Zakuani’s injury.”

Now it’s time to move on, the league has made it’s statement, Mullan has accepted his punishment. He will be back for the Colorado visit to Seattle in July. It would say a lot of his character if her were to face what would be a very hostile crowd.

Another interesting day, full of “WTF… Really?” conversations. One thing I do know is that my life is rarely boring. There are some people who are looking increasingly desperate; it’s interesting to watch.

Now, if you will excuse me I’m going to have some fun tonight.

Today largely writes itself. I got to spend an hour or so in the Department of Motor Vehicles licencing (DMV) office in Everett. It was time to renew my driving license, and for a number of reasons I had to do it in person this time.

For my non-American friends a Washington State drivers licence expires every five years. At that time I have to go in person, take an eye test and have a new photo taken. This compares to my British drivers license that expires in 2039, it was issued in 1987 and does not expire until I’m 70. It did make life very interesting when I once tried to cash travellers checks with it many years ago and the guy looked for the expiration date on my license.

I think it’s one of those things we all dread, but is a necessary evil that has to be taken care of every five years. I can think of other things the initials DMV can stand for, Dark Mindless Void comes immediately to mind, it’s a government office and typically not some where one typically goes for fun.

Before heading over I checked the queue times on the web, it said 8 minutes. It will come as no surprise that when I got there 15 minutes later I was number 37 in the queue. They were serving number 9 in the renewal line…

It’s a busy place, there were a lot of people in there, and being Everett there was some great people watching.

I did not have a book so pulled out my phone and started playing Angry Birds to pass the time (Number 10…). I’ve yet to find anything that passes time like Angry Birds, it’s scary how many times I say “Just one more then I’ll roll over and go to sleep.”

There was a low hum of activity and background noise in the room when suddenly there is a kid screaming, with the dial turned up to 11. There is a rather unhappy looking mother trying to get the kid to quieten down, The screamer (Kid-1) turns to his little bother and wallops him (as an older brother I understand this). Now Kid-2 is adding to the noise.

Mum momentarily forgets where she is and yells “Stop it now or I will hit you!”.

For a moment the entire room is silent (Number 11…”), then mum suddenly understands where she is, and that there are 100 people staring at her. She goes bright red, and starts staring at the floor.

There are moments when I love living here, Everett has all sorts. To end my story, I got what I needed, it took a lot longer than 8 minutes and I look like a total knuckle dragger in my new photo.

Brian Mullen’s punishment for breaking Steve Zakuani’s leg could be announced today, tomorrow at the latest.

Here is what I see, it was a full bloodied, red mist induced tackle. Looking at the replays Mullen led with his feet and went in to send a message. There was incidental contact with the ball, but I stand by the incidental part of that statement. It was a crunching tackle seconds after he was in a hard tackle by Grant Wahl that Mullen was looking for a call that never came.

Let’s not forget what Mullen had to say after the game, those comments did not help his cause.

Yeah it’s a hard game and this is a physical league, but there is a difference between a hard tackle and a vicious tackle, and every pro who plays this game knows that.

The penalty that Mullen is given will indicate how seriously the league takes this. Zakuani is one of the most exciting layers in the league with the ball at his feet. He’s a former number-1 over all draft pick, and his future was very, very bright. And lets not forget that bright future is worth millions of dollars to the league in transfer fees to bigger leagues in Europe.

Mullen did not go in to break Zakuani’s leg, but it was in retaliation, and it was reckless.

If Mullen gets hit hard with a big fine and a 10+ game suspension then a message has been sent to the other “committed” players who are maybe not as good with their feet. It says that this type of play is unacceptable, play recklessly and there will be consequences.

Remember how Ljungberg used to finish a game with his legs covered in bruises because of this type of play? Occasionally referred to in Seattle as the ”Hack-a-Fred tactic” as the same would happen to Montero.

Why would skilled players want to be part of a league that allows that to happen?

The League has a chance to show that skilful players are wanted here, that their contribution is more important than the heavies. It’s in the hands of the league now.

The are moments when I am handed gifts that make me go “WTF… Are you serious?” Well, today I got a couple of those in my e-mail.

First is the email that arrived this evening that the author ended “LMAO”. Apparently my ex posted a personal ad on the internet with the phrase “no strings attached” in it. Yes I’m sure I’m going to be accused of being inaccurate, but I stand by everything I write. Its funny to see, it was sent to me for grins. She has made some interesting choices in life, making accusations was never an issue for her and was happy to make some very serious ones against me. If she wants this stuff to go away, all she has to do is take care of her bills, stop delaying, listen to her lawyer, we can have this done in a week or two and everything goes away.

I can’t make this stuff up.

As for the other gift, that can wait for another day, but it’s far more awesome and needs to be used at the right time.

I was playing with my stats again and the visitor who searches every day by my ex’s name. Apparently I’m making it up or manipulating my stats, but it could never anyone with anything against her. She believes she has not crossed anyone, and clearly some people don’t agree with that. My ex was looking at this chart again yesterday afternoon, so I figured I’d update it for her.

This shows that there is one person who has visited 50 times in the last 6 weeks or so, all from the same Blackberry. On some days it dipped down to 0 visits, but no worries, she made up for it in other days. It’s all very strange.

This weekend I got introduced to Flower World near Snohomish, it was rather fun wandering around getting advise on what to plant and when it would flower. It’s so much better than the garden section at Lowes, not to knock Lowes too much but this was awesome…

Ended up working in Seattle for a few hours today, it was not planned, but this program is what it is. A little chaotic, very challenging with a lot of stuff going on, but professionally a very satisfying when it all comes together and I perhaps make a small difference like today.

After spending a few hours at Boe Field I was heading through Seattle and decided to visit the Seattle Art Museum, it’s a while since I’ve been there and the current special exhibit is a selection of about 40 of Nick Cage’s “Sound suits”

It’s performance art in a rather stunning setting. The scale is easy to comprehend, the creativity is wonderful. A variety of shapes, textures and materials are stitched into something we can actually relate to, even thought the only human form is the occasional foot poking out the bottom or even in some cases just the ankle.

First thing in the exhibit is the one non-human form. A life size bear (grizzly, not teddy) looms over you. It’s a bear in shape, but it’s constructed totally of sweaters. It rather sets the scene for the rest of the exhibit, the form is familiar, the texture is not.

The SAM is a compact, but as ever an excellent space and collection, there are a few new items, but it’s a great way to blow an hour on the way home.

I wandered through Downtown Seattle on the way back to the car, the blossoms are out and once again I’m reminded why this part of the world is special. I’ll miss it. It’s been a good day, I learned some interesting things about what’s going on, life is fascinating. Happy Easter.

This was the view from the living room early this morning, the sun is out. I love this view.

I went to the Irishman to watch the Sounders play Colorado tonight. It looked like a fascinating game, both team need the points and Colorado are the champions. It’s always nice to beat the champions.

Four minutes in Steve Zakuani had his leg broken by a reckless tackle by Brian Mullin. There was little attempt to play the ball and Mullen crashed into Zakuani’s planted right leg. The prognosis is bad and I can’t see Zakuani playing again this year.

There is a tradition where the crowd applauds as a player is stretchered off. The entire bar went silent when the tackle went in, stayed that way through the replay and until Zakuani was moved off the field. The entire bar stood and clapped as he left the field.

The tackle was bad enough, but it looked to me to be in retaliation for a hard, but clean tackle a minute or two earlier on Mullen. This is league that’s historically allowed players to get away with a certain level of retaliation. I’ve played contact sports and get that the red-mist can take over, but it’s the lack of punishment that needs to change.

Mullen does not reputation as a dirty player, but it does not matter. It needs to be a lengthy ban from the league. A few minutes of research shows the toughest ban handed out by the league was a 10 game ban to Ricardo Clark for taking a kick at Carlos Ruiz in a Houston/Dallas game a couple of seasons ago. Ten games seems light punishment for what is at best a season ending tackle. The league needs to make a statement that retaliation and playing the player rather than the ball is not acceptable.

There are dirtier players than Mullen, far dirtier, but that makes no difference tonight. He retaliated, that is unacceptable and it needs to be a significant ban. In the post game show Eric Wynalda stood up for Mullen, repeated what’s been said a few times tonight, that he is not a dirty player. He retaliated, it’s simple, even in a physical league like the MLS there is no place for that sort of play.

The result tonight seems far less important. It was a good Seattle performance against a team that was playing very tight, disciplined football. “Workman like” would be a good description for the first half. Montero scored on the overlap on the left hand side, it was a well-created chance and Seattle did a good job of stretching the defence.

The second half was very poor for Seattle, they were lucky to hang on for the win.

Again Mario Rosales created the goal, he is a player that has a really good understanding of the game. However he seems to be struggling to play with Montero, he was less effective over all tonight when compared to the last couple of games when he was in the Montero role playing off Brian O’White. Sigi needs to work out how the two of them are going to make this work. Two very good players, but just don’t seem to be clicking together, despite the goal tonight.

Update-1

“I’m sorry for Steve. It was never my intention to injure him in the least. It’s a tackle that I’ve done hundreds of times and would probably do again. I had no intention of hurting him. It’s a freak, freak thing, and I apologize and wish Steve a speedy recovery.”

This is the quote from Brian Mullen after the game. It’s the “would probably do again” part that’s disturbing; there should be no league where a tackle like this, whatever the outcome of the contact, is acceptable.

A couple of hours after he broke the tibia and fibula in Zakuani’s leg he said he’d do exactly the same thing again. This is one of the WTF was he thinking moments. I feel surer than ever that the league needs to show that there are consequences for crossing the line between hard and reckless.

Colorado come to Qwest in July, we are is not going to forget this one.

Dare I dream? Is the spring finally here? Perhaps the wettest April on record is finally drying up?

I spent an hour out on the bike this evening again, it was a little cold still, but turned into a beautiful evening in Snohomish. It’s been a great week and the finding time to relax a little has been going very well with nothing more than a minor speed bump this week.

Today has been a good day, I feel so fortunate to live in this part of the world. I love my life.