Bring on technology so we can stop blaming the poor referees

A man known as a soccer referee makes what appears to be a mistake in judgment in front of billions of people. The world can see it, but he cannot and he will not change his mind. Play on. Everyone does except for the TV people, who play it back - again and again and again.

All around the world billions of people are watching this unrepentant man's mistake from myriad angles. There must be 30 or 40 TV cameras in the stadium, but none of them exist, nor matter for the man in charge of the game because, and get this, we cannot stop the flow.

It must flow because it is flow, don't you know, which makes soccer the beautiful game. Any attempts at beginning a discussion about the use of TV replays to help sort out the plethora of truly horrid referee calls during the World Cup are immediately shot down by purists of the beautiful and flowing game.

You are accused of being an American or, even worse, of thinking like an American. Just because your big American football league has instant replay challenges which can sometimes add half an hour to the game, it does not mean it will work for soccer, the game that has only one break at half-time and which flows endlessly, this beautiful game. In essence, leave our game alone.

OK, fine. Just stop this incessant whining about the refs and realise the world probably won't end tomorrow if we had a few replay challenges of controversial calls.

Obviously, you can't go overboard and challenge every call. But there are certainly a few pivotal calls which almost beg a second look. Just ask any Australian. Sure, they were punching above their weight in the second round against Italy, but they hung in gamely and to have it all end on a ridiculous call five minutes into stoppage time takes a lifetime to get over.

And, oh yeah, this thing called stoppage time, how exactly can we have something like that in soccer? I thought the game flowed endlessly. Well, flow is all relative, isn't it? When the Brazilian team are swarming up the pitch, rhythmically swaying to and fro, getting ready for the sexiest of kills, that is the type of pure flow that puts beauty into the beautiful game. But when Italy's Francesco Totti or France's Thierry Henry or virtually every player in the tournament is flopping and diving and whining and rolling over and over as if they are a hair from death, that's flow?