Goal-Line Technology (and Karim Benzema) Gave France a 2-0 Lead on Honduras

Karim Benzema looked like he might have scored a very nice goal vs. Honduras Sunday in the World Cup. His shot bounced off the far post and across the goal line and into Honduran keeper Noel Valladares. Valladares couldn’t handle it cleanly and the ball trickled over the line.

Or did it?

Was it a goal? Was it a save? What in the wide world of sports is going on here?

FIFA’s goal-line technology rode into the rescue, quickly showing the ball initially didn’t cross the line on the ricochet off the post, but did on the Valladares bobble resulting in an own-goal to put France ahead 2-0.

FIFA doesn’t get much, if anything, right but in this instance the technology worked. True, it doesn’t do much to help fix all the blown offside calls so far at the tournament, but it did avoid an embarrassing repeat of Frank Lampard’s non-goal vs. Germany four years ago. Let’s see if and how FIFA is able to expand this technology as we move into the future.

The robots win again!