So I have to tell you that I have always believed that MLS wants LA to win, they want LA to be successful and tonight's match was a perfect example of that. Real Salt Lake won the match, Real Salt Lake outplayed LA for the vast majority of the match, watch the highlights (which are taken from the LA feed of the match):
and the LA announce team clearly saw that the goal was good, but on the MLS website the headline is:
Controversial Morales goal hands LA their first defeat of 2010
Now the article starts saying LA will say it was offside, and any news person will tell you that the top information is what people read and the headline is what they will remember, so of little surprise is that at the very end of the article this statement appears:
RSL then benefited from a fluke play in the 80th minute when Pablo Campos tried to pass a ball backward in the Los Angeles end, and it deflected off Michael Stephens before bounding directly to Javier Morales, who would have otherwise have been in an offside position. Morales calmly put the ball in the net, and controversy ensued over the non-offside call.
Now the official stats haven't been released yet but here are the preliminary numbers:
Shots: Real Salt Lake 9 - LA Galaxy 7
Shots on Goal: RSL 3 - LA 3
Fouls: Real Salt Lake 11 - LA 12
Corner Kicks: RSL 10 - LA 4
Offsides: RSL 1 - LA 2
Go back and watch the highlights again, and then watch the match again, then go back and read the article that MLS tries to play the win off as a fluke. Really, not sure what match their writer watched but RSL did something that nobody else has been able to do this year. They went at LA, they out played LA, and they looked better than LA.
OFF MY SOAPBOX