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Goal-line technology starts quiet revolution
Fifa called it a "revolution" but without a Geoff Hurst moment, goal-line technology's grand introduction to football passed almost unnoticed — and with few clues of success or failure.
Fifa called it a "revolution" but without a Geoff Hurst moment, goal-line technology's grand introduction to football passed almost unnoticed — and with few clues of success or failure.
After years of clamour for modern technology, there were no obligingly close calls to be made in Thursday's Club World Cup opener in Japan, when one of two rival systems was tested for the first time in a competitive match. Indeed, when Sanfrecce Hiroshima's Toshihiro Aoyama walloped the ball past Auckland City 'keeper Tamati
Williams in the game's only goal, no scientific help was needed to tell it had crossed the line.
World body FIFA gave away little about the first test, but as officials are expected only to give details if something goes wrong, it was a case of no news is good news for the GoalRef system's providers.
GoalRef's magnetic field system, using a special ball fitted with a chip, is on trial at games at Yokohama International Stadium, which hosted the 2002 World Cup final and is being used for four of the Club World Cup's eight games.
Hawkeye, which is familiar from tennis and cricket and uses cameras to track a ball's position and trajectory, will be tested at the competition's other matches in Toyota.
