Catherine Ivill/AMA/Corbis
Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal taken away.
Is that the purpose of the defining play-by-play roar in soccer? Let’s face it — entrusting referees to make every crucial decision with their naked eye is an unfair expectation. And with the physical demands of the sport, there’s an even greater need to consider taking an assist from technology in the form of instant replay.
As Yahoo! Sports detailed in its beginner’s guide to World Cup soccer, the average athlete covers six to eight miles in running during each contest. The same holds true for referees as they traverse the field — an area of space that can fit up to one-and-a-half American football fields within its boundaries.
But when it comes to implementing instant replay, FIFA sees that decision as being prohibitive in multiple senses. TIME’s Glen Levy rewinds to how Frank Lampard’s momentum-changing goal in England’s loss to Germany was a soccer call-for-help from video technology.