Mr. Blatter, you have crossed the line

why can't England lose when I want them to?

The lastest news that the football governing body, FIFA, will be adopting technology into the game, should bring a sigh of relief to many of us who have seen important matches being decided out of one man's judgment. This summer, Blatter announced that FIFA will be adopting goal line technology. This is not exactly the type of technology we were hoping for. It was obvious that Blatter's decision was made during this past Euro Championship when Ukraine was playing England, losing 1-0 against the Brits, when Devic hit the upright and the ball clearly crossed the line. The referee and the new and improved goal line referee missed it completely, despite being in line with the goal line and only a few feet from the action. Blatter's timing could not have been worse to show how subjective he is. 2 years earlier, England was in the same situation against Germany in the 2010 World Cup round of 16. The game was 2-1 in favor of the Germans when Lampard shot a rocket past Neuer, hit the cross bar, bounced inside the goal and then out for Neuer to catch it and act like nothing happened. Germany then won 4-1. Blatter said nothing after that game.

this was a decisive call that arguably costed
Milan their 19th scudetto, Juventus went on to tie 1-1
after Muntari's was disallowed

The biggest problem in football is not exactly whether the ball crossed the line or not, these instances are very few and far in between. The biggest problems are miscalled offsides, and miscalled handballs/fouls inside the area. Football has risen to a level where it becomes really hard to score. The teams are as leveled as they have ever been. Players are exceptionally fast. Defenders are improving. And not to mention that teams adopting stronger defensive tactics than in the past. A clear sign of this is the amount of goals scored has decreased from one World Cup to the next. So why isn't Mr. Blatter doing anything to restore the greatest joy of the game, scoring goals? I really don't know, I'm hoping somebody would answer that for me.

Lampard's goal was clearly past the line, to be fair,
the English didn't even protest during the game,
not even "excuse me mate,  was it just me or did the ball
probably cross the line? no? alright chap, cheers"

His answer to this conundrum is to add goal line technology. So let's take a look at this new technology that will restore faith in our sport. The two options are GoalRef and Hawk Eye, the same one used in tennis. GoalRef involves installing a chip inside the ball, and once it crossed the electromagnetic waves around the goal posts, it will signal a goal. I can see all the South American and African fields installing this technology right away. Hawk Eye uses cameras (hint: cameras, existing cameras!) to triangulate the ball and even predict the ball's trajectory if the line of sight is blocked by any object. I don't know how much this technology costs, but I can guarantee it's more expensive than a TV. In the premiership alone, they accounted for a 30% error when plays were reviewed by instant replay. I'm sure this percentage is higher in other leagues as well as in major tournaments. The old FIFA guard says that technology is a mistake and that the answer to this catastrophe is too have "better referees". Excuse my French, but what kind of bullshit statement is this? Even if we are cloning Pierluigi Collina, giving them all Lasik surgery and inject them with steroids, the pace of the game is only going to improve and no man, no matter how super human he is will be able to keep up. The technology already exists. It's called replay. And no, it will not slow the pace of the game.

yes, you only caught 4 bad calls today

Imagine this scenario for one second. It's the World Cup 2014 opening game. Brazil is hosting, I don't know, Korea, in the opening match. It's a nail bitter, and Brazil is leading 2-0. Neymar dribbles past 3 Koreans and makes an impossible pass to an uninjured Pato who just barely breaks the offside trap and scores. Then, they go to the corner flag, and Neymar, Pato and Ganso begin their Michel Telo dance and the crowd goes wild ... or do they? While they were preparing for the dance, the 4th, 5th and 6th official are chilling in the little FIFA table were subs check in, and they have a nice little 20in HD monitor where they could see that premature Pato stepped behind the defense before the ball was played to him, but he was just too fast for the linesman to catch it. They have a vote, all 3 officials agree he was offside and signal the main referee that Pato was offside and they disallow the goal before the players even line up to do their dance. And the integrity of the game lives on. The entire world can see whether there was fair play or not, why can't 4 underpaid clowns? Skeptics aside, I like to believe that these referees are not corrupt, the game is just simply too fast for the human eye to catch 100% of it.

Many of these decisions are game changers for many games, some are simply irrelevant and neither hurt nor advance the final outcome of the game. However, the integrity of the game has come under a lot of scrutiny and one helps but wonder, whenever these decisions favor the bigger teams, if there was foul play involved. These are some of the referee decisions that have outraged the footballing world.


10. Milan 1 - Juventus 1 Serie A 2012
Muntari scores the 2nd goal, Buffon saves it inside the goal, no goal allowed, Juventus ties the game and eventually win the scudetto.


9. USA 2 - Slovenia 2 World Cup 2010 Group Stage
Maurice Edu scores against Slovenia after a Donovan free kick. Goal disallowed. We are still waiting to hear why, no foul, no offside.

8. Germany 4 - England 1 World Cup 2010 Round of 16
Lampard shoots from outside the box, ball crosses the line and back out again, disallowed. Would've been the tying goal at 2-2.

7. Italy 1 - Australia 0 World Cup 2006 Round of 16
Grosso dribbles past one defender in the box, runs into the 2nd defender already on the ground and a penalty is awarded. Italy won the World Cup that year.

6. Italy 1 - South Korea 2 World Cup 2002 Round of 16
Tomassi scores a perfectly clean Golden Goal and it's disallowed. Korea wins with a Golden Goal.

5. Spain 0 - South Korea 0 World Cup 2002 Quarter Finals
Spain was disallowed two perfectly clean goals. Korea won on penalties. Korea was also granted certain favors in the group stage against Portugal.

4. Spain 1 - Netherlands 0 World Cup 2010 Final
In extra time, the Dutch had won a corner kick, not given, Casillas takes the goal kick that quickly builds to Iniesta's World Cup winning goal.


3. France 1 - Ireland 1 World Cup 2010 Qualifiers
Henry controls the ball not once, but twice with his hand before crossing it to Gallas and qualifying France to the World Cup thanks to "Le Hand of Le God"


2. Germany 2 - England 4 World Cup 1966 Final
Hurst's ball did not cross the line, goal was allowed, England won it's only World Cup.

1. England 0 - Argentina 1 World Cup 1986 Quarter Final
Maradona jumps and "the Hand of God" is born. The only game where a 5'5" midfielder beats a 6' goalkeeper.