re: Alexi Lalas: why is he so controversial?

You can play a character and still know what you are talking about. Most people who work primarily in controversy do know what they are talking about. It's just like in a debate. They say the people who win debates are the ones who can argue both sides equally well. Colin Cowherd and Rush Libaugh both work in controversy and both play characters that purposefully cause people to get emotional about what they are talking about. People get either emotional for them or against them, but once you have people emotionally, then you have them vested because they will keep listening.

Lalas does the exact same thing. He knows that an MLS team during the actual season couldn't truly compete within the EPL. The top MLS team would be fighting to avoid relegation, and it probably would go down. However, if Lalas says that an MLS team could compete for UCL spots, it has both MLS fans happy and EPL fans upset and more likely to watch MLS to see how far it has come. Now, his points would all be valid but they would have massive gaps. He would probably point to a Red Bulls win over Arsenal as well as a Colorado Rapids win over Swansea last year among a few other "upsets". What he wouldn't mention would be that the EPL teams are playing youth guys in preseason and experimenting with guys in different positions against MLS guys in midseason form playing the biggest game of the season. It's route 1 arguing.