There are no photographs of Tim Cahill’s lightning fast goal at Houston on Sunday, probably because the photographers assigned to cover the game were as stunned and surprised as the Dynamo and Cahill’s Red Bulls teammates.

Cahill scored eight seconds into the Red Bulls’ emphatic 3-0 win, which put the club within a victory of clinching its first Supporters Shield as the No. 1 team over all in Major League Soccer this season. It was Cahill’s team-leading 11th goal of the season.

Winning the Shield would give the Red Bulls the top seeding in the playoffs in the Eastern Conference and could mean the club would host M.L.S. Cup, the league’s championship game, should the Red Bulls advance to the final. The Red Bulls close the regular season against visiting Chicago on Sunday at Red Bull Arena. The Red Bulls will host the second game of the opening round on Nov. 6 or 7 in a series against the lowest surviving seed in the conference.

Cahill, who rejoined the club in the middle of last week after traveling to Europe to be with the Australian national team for two exhibitions (at France and against Canada in England), described the goal, which involved Thierry Henry, Dax McCarty and Peguy Luyindula:

“I was ready to take the kickoff with Thierry, but then I thought we were practicing in training getting it back to Dax and fizzing it out wide. Peguy came up, Thierry played it back and Dax fizzed it into me on the wing. I jumped, and I thought, Should I head it to Thierry, or bring it down on my chest? Once I saw the player too far away, I controlled it in my direction and then, boom, back of the net. It was a great feeling because of what the goal meant for us to settle into the game immediately. We didn’t have to chase the game and keep our position. For me it was a special goal and I’ll never forget it because of the meaning of what it meant to our team and our football club.”