How Lampard's Ghost Goal Changed Football Forever

who remembers the 2010 FIFA World Cup it was one hell of a time wasn't it that was the first time the World Cup ever went to Africa and it was a real Vibe the jabulani the vuu zelas Shakira's song canan's waving flag Suarez's hand of God there's just a whole lot to remember about that tournament man till today it is still up there as one of the greatest most entertaining and most eventful sporting festivals of all time but in the midst of all this entertainment something hugely consequential happened at the 2010 World Cup in South

Africa which changed the entire history of football as we know it what am I talking about well come along as I tell you how Frank lampard's ghost goal changed football forever so you see Germany and England were two of the favorites going into the 2010 World Cup everyone expected them to finish top of their respective groups which would have put them in different paths to the final and well Germany did as we expected they beat Ghana and Australia and that was enough for them to finish top of Group D but England on the other hand

failed to win their opening two games against the US and Algeria so after beating Slovenia in the last game of the group stage the best they could manage was a second place finish in group C they finished with the same points and goal difference as the us but they scored fewer goals and that put them in second so they went from possibly facing Ghana in the round of 16 to facing former world champions Germany even before that game kicked off everyone knew that that was the match of the round Spain and Portugal were also facing

off in that round but this was The game everyone had their eyes on both teams were star studded and packed with the best talents in World football we had John Terry Ashley Cole Steven Gerard Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney on England's side then Germany had Manuel Noah Thomas Müller Mesa Oil Bastian Schweinsteiger mirav closer and Philip L Germany were led by yakim low while England were led by Italian manager Fabio Capello two of the best tacticians in the game at the time this round of 16 matchup was sure to deliver on quality and entertainment and

it didn't fail to live up to expectations at all the only difference was that nobody expected the entertainment to come the way it did you see the game was well poised from the very beginning Germany started out on top and they finally got the lead in the 20th minute after Upson and Terry midre a very long goal kick from neya and failed to properly deal with it that allowed claa to wrestle through and stretch just in time to hit the ball past an onrushing David James to open the scoring with his 12th goal in World

Cup finals but the Germans weren't satisfied they kept pounding on the door of England's defense and 12 minutes later it opened up for them again they had a quick exchange of passes in the Midfield which released Thomas Müller to drive into the box then he laid a pass to Lucas Podolski who shot from a very tight angle and scored in the 32nd minute 2- n two goals down in the first half of the game what were England going to do well they were going to fight and that fight very quickly yielded results just 5 minutes

after they went two goals down the Three Lions hared the deficit they had a corner but chose to take it short after two passes Steven Gerard sent a cross into the box and Matthew Upson was just at the right place at the right time he rose highest in the box and sent his header past Manuel Neuer who was in no man's land 2-1 game on England were obviously very fired up they wanted to get back on level terms before halftime so they started attacking doing everything to get that equalizer before the break and well they

did they did get their equalizer just 2 minutes after scoring their first goal Frank Lampard latched onto a ball which a German Defender had tried to clear and the English midfielder immediately sent a looping shot towards noa's goal from outside the 18 yd box the ball went over noya's head bounced off the crossbar and very obviously crossed the line completely Lampard was Wheeling away in Celebration the England fans in the stadium were elated Fabio Capello and the rest of the England bench were so happy for their equalizer but wait a minute something isn't right what

happened there so after the ball bounced under the crossbar and Over The Line Noya quickly went to grab it and continued the game like nothing happened and guess what the referee allowed for the game to go on he didn't award the goal to England and when the replay came up on the screen it was obvious that we had all just witnessed one of the biggest controversy in the modern game so 2 1 the score remained in the second half England tried to motivate themselves to get back into the game despite the obvious Injustice they had

faced but they just weren't able to pick themselves back up Lampard hit the woodwork from a longdistance free kick early in the second period and the next free kick he attempted was what led to Germany's third goal his free kick hit the German wall the ball was stolen off Barry and that started a German Counterattack which Ed with Thomas Müller hitting the ball as hard as he could past David James in the 67th minute and then just 3 minutes later we saw another brilliant counterattacking play from Germany Ozil skipped past Gareth Barry on the left

hand side and drove straight into the box where he was able to lay a smooth pass to Müller who scored his second of the day and Germany's fourth England were beaten 41 which meant that the Three Lions failed to reach the quarterfinals of the World Cup for the first time since 1998 but it was so hard to blame them for this loss after what had happened in the first half sure the Germans played some really brilliant counterattacking football but the controversy certainly overshadowed the result and rightfully so it was so bad that se blatter who

was FIFA president at the time had to come out and tender a public apology to England I'm really sorry it was very unusual to see the FIFA president apologize to a team but it was something that needed to be done after England were practically robbed in daylight and we know there are some people who may have said so what even if the goal had been awarded to England they would still have lost 42 but that's just too simplistic Now isn't it Germany's thirdd and fourth goals were from counter attacks and that's because England were desperately

looking for goals in the second half if they had been rightfully awarded that goal in the first half the entire game would have taken on a very different complexion also having an equalizer snatched from you in the out rounds of the biggest competition in World football can be so demoralizing and it definitely affected the England players mentally blatter understood all this which is why he apologized the very next day he admitted that it would be nonsense to not bring up the topic of technology in the next business meeting of the ifab after that tournament was

over blatter said we will come out with a new model in November on how to improve highlevel referees something has to be changed and well something did change meetings were held internally and the following year FIFA began to sanction tests for the use of goal line technology and that led to its usage being approved different systems were tried including G ref which is based on magnetic fields and a sensor in the ball and Hawkeye which uses multiple cameras to triangulate the exact position of the ball at every point in time these two systems were employed

in the 2012 FIFA Club World Cup which was the first official competition goal line technology was applied it was used to try out the system once it proved to be working just fine go Li technology was then written into the laws of the game in 2012 which then allowed competitions to adopt it but it wasn't made mandatory so each competition reserved the right to adopt its usage or not considering what they suffered at the 2010 World Cup it was no surprise that the English Premier League was the first domestic League to adopt goal line technology

the Premier League first introduced this technology ahead of the 2013 to 14 season and the first goal in the Premier League that was awarded using this technology was one scored by Eden Z for Man City against Cardiff City on the 18th of January 2014 the German Bundesliga and French league one would later adopt it ahead of the 2015 to 16 Season while the first World Cup that saw this technology used was the 2014 showdown in Brazil Continental competitions like the UFA Champions League UFA Europa League euros and CPR America would join the goal line technology

wave in 2016 but the Spanish La Liga has still refused to adopt this technology despite all the top leagues taking it on and this has led to multiple controversies in the league over the years including a recent one in El Classico between Barcelona and Real Madrid in 2024 when V wasn't able to get a clear angle to determine if lyal's cross had completely crossed the line but apart from Spain the entire world has pretty much joined the goal line Tech Community and there are no doubts that it has made life better for players and fans

in fact a similar technology has even been introduced to help referees to detect offsides very quickly the semi-automated offside technology was implemented successfully in the 2022 World Cup as well as the 2024 euros and Copa America it has also been introduced to the Premier League Sera and Champions League among other leagues so Frank Lampard might have been mad that his goal against Germany wasn't awarded to him but he can take some consolation in the fact that it changed the entire future of football and yes it was actually his goal that forced this change it is

true that the introduction of Technology had been discussed prior to the 2010 World Cup but in March 2010 just 3 months before the kickoff of the World Cup in South Africa FIFA and ifab literally voted against the implementation of the technology but as blatter himself confessed lampard's ghost goal against Germany forced them to reopen those conversations and 2 years later the technology was officially approved and introduced into the game so yeah Frank Lampard and his unfortunate ghost goal deserve to get a lot of credit for the introduction of goal line technology in the sport right

now but hey I'm a little curious here especially for supporters of England if you could go back in time would you want lampard's equalizing goal against Germany to be given which would probably mean no goal line technology till date or do you see that as a sacrifice which England being the home of football had to make for the betterment of the the sport as a whole I want to hear from you guys so talk to me in the comments and if you thought this goal in this game was influential you won't believe how much this

controversial match changed the course of football [Applause] [Music]