Melbourne Victory captain Kevin Muscat was once described as the "most hated man in football" by former Birmingham City player Martin Grainger in 2000 and during Saturday's A-League match against Melbourne Heart, he once again proved why.
With the score at 2-2 in the 79th minute, Muscat threw himself at Heart's Adrian Zahra with an ugly high challenge that violently flipped the 20-year-old. Muscat was quickly shown a red card and Zahra had to be carried off the pitch.
Though Zahra didn't suffer any complete tears of ligaments in his knee and won't require surgery, he does have damage to multiple ligaments and will miss the rest of the season. On Sunday, the 37-year-old Muscat expressed remorse and apologized. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
"My number one concern - my only concern - is the welfare of Adrian," Muscat asserted. "It was an incident that I deeply regret. It was a mistimed tackle - dreadfully mistimed - but at no point did I have any intent to injure the player.
''In the next couple of days I will take the opportunity to try and contact him and pass on my sentiments, if he'll accept them. [...]
"I accept everything that's going to be coming my way in relation to bans and suspensions and also criticism of my character, my performance, all that comes with it."
Asked about retirement, Muscat said: "I haven't had a chance to contemplate, or think about it. Unfortunately I mistimed a tackle terribly. Maybe the game's telling me it's passed me by?"
Hopefully Muscat will be given a very long ban to give him ample time to contemplate that question.
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