As massive as the 2014 FIFA World Cup was, 2014’s largest sports event also played host to the year’s most exciting technological introduction. And for once, soccer’s most important technological advancement had nothing to do with how to lighten a boot, how to magically spray down an injury, or how to more effectively sell beer, gambling, and airline tickets to a global audience. Instead, the world watched as FIFA recycled an old technology for its own use, and in the process changed the way we watch a sport that has captivated us for a century.
2014’s most exciting technological introduction was FIFA’s implementation of goal-line technology during the World Cup. For techies, this may be a bit of a letdown, because the technology is neither new nor particularly groundbreaking. But for soccer fans, goal-line technology has literally changed a game that holds on to tradition more staunchly than any other massively televised sport around the world.
For the uninitiated, the call for goal-line technology began after the 2000 Africa Cup of Nations final, when referees wrongly disallowed a goal by Nigeria’s Viktor Ikpeba in the penalty shootout, giving Cameroon the victory. Mutterings and ideas were presented and rejected over the next decade, until a Frank Lampard disallowed equalizer against Germany in the 2010 World Cup revived discussions once more. In the past four years, nine systems have been tested, and two have been implemented: SelectSport’s GoalRef, and more popularly, Sony’s Hawk-Eye.
GoalRef uses coils installed in the goalpost to create a magnetic field that is interrupted only when the entirety of the ball has crossed the line. Hawk-Eye uses many cameras to determine a ball’s flight path and the spot where it lands. Both systems are expensive: the German Bundesliga estimated it would cost around €500,000 per club per year to implement Hawk-Eye, which would include at least a dozen cameras and microchips in every ball. Luckily, money wasn’t an obstacle for FIFA, who installed Hawk-Eye into Brazil in time for the world’s biggest sporting event.
Hawk-Eye made its global debut this summer, once and for all settling most in-home goal debates (that didn’t include a contested offside call or penalty inside the twelve yard box). In a group stage match between France and Honduras, France’s Karim Benzema connected on a cross and struck the ball off the far post. Honduras goalkeeper Noah Valladares mishandled the ricochet, reached back in panic, and grabbed the ball for a quick outlet. Within half a second, the referee standing behind the net correctly called it a goal, not because he had seen the ball cross over the line, but because the Hawk-Eye system informed a special watch on his wrist that the sensors in the goal post had been tripped, signaling a successful goal.
It was the first time that Hawk-Eye was used to confirm a goal in international play, and it all happened swiftly and without much controversy. The introduction of goal-line technology was one of the lone bright spots in Brazil’s controversial World Cup, but we have yet to see the potential of this groundbreaking technology.
The Good
To protect match-fixing, referees, and national pride, scoring plays in soccer must be called accurately. The human element can only hurt decisions as objective as whether a ball crosses a line or not; and, therefore, the only reasonable solution is to implement technology that will get it right 100 percent of the time. So far, FIFA has been pleased with the system’s accuracy.
It’s also important to relay results in real-time, which is why Hawk-Eye has surpassed instant replay as the go-to decision-making system. Hawk-Eye doesn’t actually provide visual evidence; rather, it predicts the flight of the ball based on triangulation methods and copious amounts of data, which gives it the ability to relay where a ball ends up in less than half a second. When the ball and its embedded microchip crosses a plane that the cameras focus on, the system relays a message to a referee’s watch within half a second, signaling a goal. Arguments from the opposing team may ensue, (this is soccer, after all) but the system leaves no doubt whether the ball crossed the line or not.
The Bad
Dissenters will claim that the results can’t be taken seriously if the system doesn’t provide visual evidence, but because Hawk-Eye provides mechanical evidence and an accurate decision in record time, it overcomes its limitations with the exceeding service it provides.
Still, some improvements could be made to the system.
For one, Hawk-Eye is still too expensive. The British Premier League along with some teams in Major League Soccer use the system, and for the foreseeable future, FIFA will use it during the World Cup. But the German Bundesliga, the second largest league in the world, has already rejected the technology league-wide for financial reasons; and there’s no reason to believe that any other league below it will invest in the technology until the price lowers significantly.
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For another, Hawk-Eye is limited to goal-line decisions. The ability to track offside calls, the next crucial step in determining accurate goals, seems feasible, but also a lot more expensive if the technology requires microchips in each player’s boots. The ability to make calls in the 12-yard box remains a subjective that technology cannot possibly process at this point without some form of artificial intelligence. Both of these limitations are surmountable, but it’s going to take a lot of money and years of research and development before this can become a reality.
The Future
Right now, we can only determine the significance of goal-line technology based on previous experiences.
What if the Ikpeba goal was allowed and Nigeria won the cup? Would England have advanced to the quarterfinals had Lampard’s equalizer given them momentum against Germany?
It’s all hindsight, but for the foreseeable future, at least on the international stage, those kinds of questions based on objective goal-line decision-making will not be part of our daily soccer discussions. That reality has arrived, and it will make soccer a cleaner and more exciting game in 2015 and beyond.