Every single time Real Salt Lake scored a goal I erupted in a fit of hysterical laughter. I find it quite pleasurable to see the Galaxy lose. I admit that. But in between goals I also found myself wondering whether the score - Real Salt Lake 3, Landon Free Galaxy 0 - really was the best result for both teams.

See, I’ve come to believe for both the Galaxy and RSL that it’s in their long term interest to lose games, and to lose them badly. Los Angeles, who have lost their last three games by an aggregate score of 8-0, has been doing an admirable job of securing its interest. I’d like to think that Alexi Lalas knew the Galaxy’s interest before last weekend, but I’m absolutely positive he knows it now. Steve Sampson has to go.

Just because you know what has to happen doesn’t always mean you can or want to make it happen. For any number of reasons, but particularly for lack of a suitable alternative, Lalas and Company may (indeed probably) feel right now is not the time to send Sampson on his merry way. Perhaps I buy into those Klinsmann coaching the Galaxy rumblings a bit too much, but you’ve gotta admit something about it rings very true. Point is, I think Sampson’s going to hang on to his job until after the World Cup.

But there’s a real danger in deferring the inevitable: the coach who needs to be fired might start winning. That’s a bad thing. Crew fans understand what I’m talking about. Back in October I wrote the following about the Crew’s 2005 season:

We all woke up on May 15, 2004 and read in the morning press that today was a day of reckoning for Greg Andrulis. Win that afternoon or face the axe. In retrospect Columbus probably should have thrown the match. Instead they won and delayed the inevitable for over a year. Yes, the inevitable.

There was not a single bit of difference between the Greg Andrulis whose team missed the playoffs in 2003 and went winless in its first five games of 2004, and the Greg Andrulis whose team beat New England on that unfortunate Saturday. Not one bit of difference.

I don’t know if John Ellinger would have been fired or not had Real Salt Lake failed to win against the Los Angeles Galaxy. I have my doubts, and I strongly suspect Ellinger’s job security is considerably more secure than it ought to be. But the basic fact of the matter is that he should have been fired a long time ago. The win against Los Angeles changed absolutely nothing in that regard.

There is no difference between the John Ellinger whose team went 18 games without a win and the John Ellinger whose team had a very good day against a depleted and effete Los Angeles Galaxy.