Video please video.

By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports

JOHANNESBURG – FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig should go on vacation together to discuss their progressive visions of the future.

Perhaps a week in Pompeii would be fitting.

Two of sports’ final holdouts against instant replay could sit around and discuss the beauty of clinging to the tradition of blocking video technology to fix inaccurate officiating decisions.

Eight months after Selig’s baseball postseason was marred by easily reversed mistakes and one month after a perfect game was blown because of an umpire’s admitted error, it’s Blatter who is in a bother. One of his referees failed to recognize a clear English goal in Sunday’s World Cup game against Germany.

In the 38th minute of this knockout-stage game between heated rivals, England’s Frank Lampard delivered a brilliant strike that hit the crossbar and the ball came down behind the goal line only to bounce back into the field of play.

FIFA referee Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay had a poor line of vision on the play and missed the goal. When he appealed to one of his linesmen, he was told it was no goal. The linesman, however, was situated 15 yards up field, right where he was supposed to be to make offside calls.

Lampard’s goal would have tied the game at 2-2. Germany wound up winning 4-1.

The decisive German margin of victory does not minimize the significance of the error. In soccer, the score completely dictates the way both teams can play. Germany maintaining a 2-1 lead allowed it to take a more defensive position. A 2-2 tie would’ve forced the Germans to open it up a little more.

Conversely, the 2-1 deficit caused the English to press forward, leaving them open to the kind of counterattack that led to Germany’s third and fourth goals.

You can’t argue that, due to the final score, the missed goal had no bearing on the game. There is simply no way to shake off a blown call like that and claim everything should carry on as usual. One event forever impacts the next event.

The mistake will go down in World Cup history, and if we know anything about these things, it is Larrionda who feels the worst. The ref will no doubt bear the brunt of what will be intense global outrage. If you know anything about the World Cup, you know his life will never be the same and, at this moment, he probably fears for his safety and his family’s. This will be one of the worst things to ever happen to him.

And Sepp Blatter and his fellow FIFA suits could have prevented it.

It’s human nature for mistakes to occur. It’s unlikely that Larrionda woke up Sunday and hoped he would botch a major decision in a huge contest. Referees have thankless and difficult jobs. Mistakes occur. In soccer, the field of play is vast and the action is quick.

The NFL, which has a smaller playing surface, uses a seven-man officiating crew and comprehensive video replay. FIFA throws three guys out there, asks them to run miles without a break in play and prays they get it right.

This is on Sepp Blatter and the other bureaucrats. Their abstinence caused conflict, disrespected the competition and brought embarrassment to this great event.

This is the World Cup, the biggest sporting event on earth. There is no reason to cling to some humble mistakes-will-be-made idea out of the 1950s. That was fine when there was no way to fix them.

The technology exists to assure goal-line mistakes never occur. Chips can be put in the ball to assure positioning. Monitoring devices can be placed across the net. Or the referee could just stop play on a contentious play and ask for a video review. FIFA has studied all sorts of solutions. Yet Blatter keeps his head in the sand.

“Please do not insist on the technology,” Blatter told reporters in December. “Referees shall remain human, and we will not have monitors to stop the game to see if we are right or wrong. There will be no more discussion [between fans] and then no more hope and then no more life.”

Oh, there is going to be endless discussion between fans on this. Does Blatter think this is better? An entire nation feeling cheated? Fans robbed of a legendary second half of action after the English having mounted a brave comeback from a 2-0 hole? A referee left to global scorn?

Soccer doesn’t need every decision to be reviewed. Fouls, yellow cards and red cards could remain the judgment of the referee. A goal is different, especially in soccer.

Instead of a 30-second replay review that could’ve solved the problem and guaranteed an honest game, we’ll get weeks, months and even decades of condemnation of the missed call.

Larrionda, who did nothing wrong except make a mistake that he’ll no doubt regret until his final breath, will go down in World Cup annals as a figure of controversy.

History should save its condemnation for Sepp Blatter.

He’s the one who put Larrionda in a terrible position, set up to fail. By not acting sooner, not being a leader, not releasing his preposterous grasp of “tradition,” Blatter altered the World Cup he is paid richly to run.