Efan Ekoku is 'Effin Wrong

If you watched the opening game of the 2010 World Cup here in the United States, you likely heard Efan Ekoku complaining to high heaven about Mexico being cheated out of a goal. Ekoku's contention was Carlos Vela was not offside and should have been credited with a goal, and he whined and whined about it.

The main problem, is that he was wrong. Ekoku clearly doesn't understand how the offside rule works. Quoth FIFA in their laws of the game (which you can get from here):

A player is in an offside position if:
• he is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the
second-last opponent

Which Vela was when he received the ball. There's no distinction between the goalkeeper and any other opponent, so it doesn't matter that there was another player on the line.

So these are the announcers ESPN had to import because Americans weren't good enough? Really? Off the top of my head I'm pretty sure the Christopher Sullivan and Marcelo Balboa both understand how the offside rule works. Even though he's batshit insane Ray Hudson probably knows this as well. I know Alexi Lalas does, as he point blank said the refs were right.

Here's a clip of the non-goal: