I just want it for was it over the line or not.

Its up to the referee to stop play straight away and check to see what the correct decision is.

If its a goal then the goal is given. If its not then play restarts with the goalkeeper.

I think thats how they should start anyway

I for one, am really enjoying the fact that there have been so many blown calls this WC. FIFA will have a hard time justifying not introducing goal line technology/replays after this WC.

It's just a matter of time. The old guys running FIFA are just out of touch. Give it 20-30 years and people who are 20-30'ish now will then be in charge of FIFA and this generation is alot less technophobic.

It's not nice to say but I kind of agree. Part of me is hoping for a terrible decision or two in the semis to really ramp up the pressure.

yup and the funny thing is that every single decision could have been called correctly with replay and it wouldn't have taken more than 30 seconds to review all of these incidents.

If goal line technology is to be used, I see absolutely no reason for the referee to make a call and then have him proven right or wrong. Just continue playing untill the referee communicates that it is a goal (obv he has an earpiece that tells him). It is remarkably simple: award a goal if ball crosses line, otherwise, carry on. Obviously if the net bulges, go ahead and award the goal, I'm not saying he has to wait for the call every single time. A borderline decision is pretty easy to distinguish from an obvious one.

Offsides are only slightly more complicated. You have to see precisely when the ball was played and then you have attackers and defenders moving around (whereas the goal line is static) and judgement calls to make on who is active and who is not. Nevertheless, if the TV companies can quickly bring up enough replays to draw a positive conclusion, someone well versed with the rules can call it very quickly imo.

Anything else, I just don't like it. I'm not thrilled that you get things like Hand of God and Henry's handball and undeserved red cards, but the alternative doesn't sit well with me either. Too often these things are about referee interpretation and not just about what he has seen. Maybe the ref decided not to give handball because he thought it was accidental, not because he hadn't seen it. If video ref disagrees, does he trump on field ref? Too much dialogue imo.

With players that will flop and lay on the ground of a minute or more, I have a hard time believing that replay would effect or slow down the game, at all. Hell, that last 15 minutes of 80% of the games seem to be "lets waste as much time as possible."

Or, instead of review,

Have cameras along the sidelines, have an off-field official(s) watching these cameras call down the correct calls to all the on-field officials.

do any soccer venues have goal horns? serious question.

also, why not goal judges?

Nate - no and no, because they aren't in the rules.

A goal judge is what I'm advocating. He just sits in a booth with a TV. Why not indeed?

I don't know what a goal horn is.

well i'm not advocating goal horns but a goal judge would have certainly seen the England goal today

goal horn is a hockey thing. home team scores and you hear an obnoxious load sound....organ, siren, horn, etc.

soccer is just too fluid and beautiful to be interfered with

Point to the rules isn't a satisfactory answer to, "why not?"

1. Start with: review every goal to see if it's in the net and if there was offsides. (Along with, instruct your linesmen to keep their ****ing flags down unless a guy is seven miles offside. If a goal is scored as a result of a marginal offside call not made, it'll be caught.) Given that most goal celebrations resemble halftime at the Super Bowl anyway, there should be minimal delay to the game while this happens.

Things not to review: routine foul calls, out of bounds decisions, that sort of thing.

I think you should also review, post match, every card that was given to see if it was legit or not, and also review to retroactively issue cards for the renditions of Swan Lake put on by divers.

I wouldn't mind if there was someone able to confirm to the ref in real time regarding card decisions--again, given that they usually whine for a good thirty seconds while a yellow is given, should be enough time to get a replay to see if a card was legitimate or not. I don't feel too strongly about this one though.

2. Start simple: fourth ref in a booth with replay technology and a communication to the field official. He reviews according to the guidelines and lets the ref know when there's been a mistake.

3. Given that random fouls aren't part of my replay, this shouldn't be a big problem. For the two massive mistakes today:

in the first case, replay ref says, "um, that was a goal, we've run off 25 seconds of play for me to figure out that you screwed up, award the goal, put 25 seconds on the stoppage time at the end of the half since that time didn't really happen", move on;

in the second case, replay ref says "um, he was six miles offside, wipe out the goal, award Mexico a free kick from point X, and, time should be fine since we were always stopping it after the players, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Joel started doing coke with Maradona on the sideline."

In both cases, there is minimal disruption to the game (about 25 seconds of people running around pointlessly in the England-Germany game, and zero in the Argentina-Mexico game), and more importantly the refs haven't made a massive screwup which potentially costs two teams four years of work.


And obviously, you can't use this at every level of soccer. Who cares. Your major level leagues could easily use this at relatively minimal cost, and for games that aren't being televised, well, you've probably got fourth-rate officials and sixth-rate players playing before a crowd of family and friends anyway, and who really gives a damn.