The New York Red Bulls 3-1 win over cross-town opponent New York City FC was not one ripe with controversy. The Red Bulls dominated the second half and ran away with it on the backs of 3 unanswered goals. Weird thing is, the scoreline should've been 3-0, giving Luis Robles a shutout, according to the Professional Referee Organization.
A corner is taken by City's David Villa. He passes to team-mate Mehdi Ballouchy, who stops the ball for Villa to cross into the penalty area. Eventually a goal is scored by Thomas McNamara. This corner routine is obviously a tactic that has been practiced by NYCFC.
Usually this ploy would not be a problem, as there are often defenders on the goal line. However, when you look at the positions of all the players on the freeze frame, there are no defenders on the goal line which puts Villa in an offside position when the ball is touched by Ballouchy.
Therefore, as soon as Villa plays the ball he has committed an offside offense and should have been penalized for 'Interfering with Play'.
So the Red Bulls played Villa offside, but never realized what was going on. If you look at the Red Bull defenders, no one even questions it, and none of the fans recognized it. If it wasn't for PRO pointing this out, no one would've thought anything of it. As it stands though, Luis Robles should have 1 less Goals Against and 1 more Shutout added to his stats.
