May The Game Prevail Over Parallax Errors

In the eight knockout games, many a World Cup dream was extinguished. Dreams die harder when expectations are raised. This was the case amongst the supporters of all 16 teams in round two, whose fans began to dream of what two wins might bring—at the very least, a possible top four finish. And so, we saw heartbreak expressed in many languages at stadia and fan parks across South Africa. American fans grieved as Ghana prevented the US from repeating last July’s performance at the Confederations Cup in South Africa, when they led Brazil two-nil in the finals before being overwhelmed by the Selecao. Asian hearts were broken as the Japanese Blue Samurai lost a penalty shootout to Paraguay, and South Korea were beaten by Uruguay. Chile’s creative team was unpicked by Brazil’s Selecao. The Mexicans were waved goodbye as Argentina continued to look like the team to beat, despite a dodgy goal. The Netherlands looked fresher and more creative, with the return of Arjen Robben, in ending the Slovak dream. And Spain sank the Portuguese man o’ war.

The most raucous din, predictably, came from off field, following Germany’s blitzkrieg demolition of a star-studded English team. Although the English team’s collective net worth in pound sterling may have been higher than the gdp of some small countries, the wunderkind of die mannschaft put up a sterling performance, combining speed, tidy passing and lethal counterattacks.

The considerably noisier off-field entertainment involved high-decibel calls for bringing in hawk-eye technology to decision-making after replays showed that English midfielder Frank Lampard’s shot actually crossed the goal line after hitting the crossbar before bouncing out. German fans, even those who grudgingly conceded that this was definitely/probably/maybe a goal, greatly relished this moment of delicious revenge, long overdue since 1966, when Geoff Hurst’s strike off the crossbar was definitively ruled a goal at that year’s World Cup final between England and West Germany. In all the noise, one should not overlook other controversies, including Tevez’s opening goal in the Argentina-Mexico game, where he was at least a yard behind the last defender. Or the disallowed US goal against Slovenia. Or the South African goalkeeper being given a red card after barely tackling Uruguay’s Suarez. Or the Thierry Henry handball that saw France qualify for the World Cup at Ireland’s expense. Or umpteen other cases in previous World Cups.

Admittedly, there were many controversial decisions by officials. To that extent, even FIFA boss Sepp Blatter made a gesture to mollify the howling mob by conceding that he would “discuss” using technology to avoid bungling in future. However, much of the reportage about what he said is couched in delightfully imprecise terms. So it is unclear if we are looking at the possibility only of replicating tennis’s hawk-eye technology to see if the ball crosses the line, or if the review will be more extensive, including offside reviews, handball reviews and so on. Blatter seemed to suggest that only hawk-eye was under consideration. If that is so, what about other refereeing errors? Or will FIFA take this step only to appease one lot of particularly vociferous tabloideers?

Every World Cup has had its share of controversy. These are usually only tacitly acknowledged, by discreetly dropping match officials responsible for egregious errors. This time, though, Blatter said he had apologised to the England and Mexico teams, for what that was worth.

But controversial decisions are not unique to football. And while technology is useful, it is usually meaningful only at specific points in most sports. So too should it be in football, if technology is to make its entry at all.

Take the case of other sports. In rugby, TV replays are used to determine whether the ball was grounded after a player (often with ten large defenders sitting on him) crossed the try line. In tennis, technology guards the lines, but not in lieu of the linesman and the umpire. Cricket seems to have gone further, with umpires making a mystic sign (of a TV screen?) to call a higher authority to rule in run-outs. On the other hand, the US baseball major league does not depend on technology to second-guess umpires on most calls, although it sometimes appears that managers can scuff dust at erring umpires. Certainly a novel form of protest. But maybe that is a cultural thing.

The fact is, refereeing in sports is subject to human imperfection. Once all environmental variables are removed, what next? Must we eliminate differences of climate and human capacity to keep all concerned at the same level? In truth, while it could be justifiably argued that England and Mexico would not have had to push for an equaliser had it not been for two controversial decisions, that is an unproven hypothesis. You can’t redo the past. The short point is, the Germans were faster and fresher than their English rivals. And Argentina would have won against Mexico even without that goal from Tevez. It’s hard to argue that bad decisions robbed the better team of a deserved result.

It is also difficult, on present evidence, to argue that venality or bias rigged results. Fortunately, we are not at that sorry place described artfully by that master of comic verse, Ogden Nash: “An umpire whose vision/was cause for derision/said in surprise/why blame my eyes?/it’s my heart that dictates the decisions.” On present evidence, bad decisions were just that: bad calls.

We still have the finest football ahead of us for one more week. So far, we have had over 120 goals scored, many of pure genius. Time therefore to stop whining over what might have been, and to focus on the great games before us. Four quarter finals, two semi finals, a third-place play-off and the final! Bliss!

(The author is an IFS officer posted in Johannesburg. He writes this in his personal capacity as a self-confessed soccer nut.)