Kyle Beckerman is the captain of Real Salt Lake and a dark horse contender for Major League Soccer's MVP. Well, at least he was until Wednesday night. That's when the defensive midfielder went all Zinedine Zidane on Daniel Paladini, was shown a straight and can now expect a ban of at least a couple games.
Kyle Beckerman Head Butts Daniel Paladini, Can Expect Lengthy Suspension
The incident is the kind of thing that will make people question their previous opinions of a player who has slowly earned a reputation as one of the more skilled defensive midfielders in MLS. What makes it worse is the circumstances surrounding it: The Chicago Fire had just scored, it was only the 10th minute of the game and he was clearly responding to what he felt should have been a foul on Paladini. If he had caused serious injury, he'd probably be looking at a ban that would keep him out the rest of the season and possibly force him to miss the playoffs.
As it is, Paladini was able to stay in the game and seems to be fine, which is all lucky for Beckerman. But the league has set a precedent for these kind of retaliatory fouls when they handed Brian Mullan a 10-game ban for his leg-breaking tackle of Steve Zakuani back in April and, while not nearly as serious, there are some similarities between the two incidents that the league will almost surely consider.
What makes this worse for Beckerman and RSL is that they were still fighting for the Supporters' Shield when the incident occurred and they are still fighting for playoff positioning. A team's captain can not let his emotions take over like that, especially when it's so costly to his team's goals. RSL went on to lose that game 3-0 and now finds itself three points and five goals behind the Seattle Sounders, who have now played the same number of games.
I actually like Beckerman as a player, and it’s too bad he lost his cool like this. But the league can not allow this kind of action to go unpunished. A ban of at least two additional games seems fair.
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