Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

They score World Cup goals at the  rate of about one per solar eclipse.

How hard is it to score?

There have been more moon landings than there have been World Cup goals.

Nations name their next generation of males after the guy who scores a  game-winning goal.

A World Cup goal sometimes acquires a legacy of its own: Ask any Argentine (his name undoubtedly is “Diego”) about Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” score 24 years ago against England in the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Or, better, ask any Brit.

We can all agree that, (a) it’s pretty tough to score at the World Cup, and, (b) that such scores are cause for great celebration and glee, leading to much obnoxious horn-blowing.

Our question, then, is, why the heck does FIFA insist on ignoring half of the goals scored in this 2010 edition of the World Cup?

The USA, before departing in the Round of 16, got robbed twice in group play against Slovenia and Algeria.

England smacked a shot two yards behind the goal line during its knockout round game against Germany on Saturday, and it got nuttin’.

Meanwhile, Argentina scored against Mexico Sunday even though its forward was offside by a yard. This led to considerable dissatisfaction among the Mexicans and their fans after they saw a replay on the big screen inside the stadium, and a fight almost broke out on the sidelines when the teams headed to their locker rooms at halftime.

As for FIFA, it knew what to do: Get rid of the instant replays inside the stadiums to short-circuit the controversy. Also, it regularly holds press conferences to tell everyone that, uh, sometimes the refs goof up, but that’s OK because everybody goofs up.

Tell that to the air traffic controller before your flight out of South Africa.

What is it about entrenched sports bureaucracies that causes them to formulate a multitude of excuses for a problem, rather than to simply make it go away?

Here in the U.S., major league baseball umpires blow calls all the time; last month, a missed call at first base cost Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game. Well, no big deal. It isn’t like there already haven’t been 20 perfect games pitched in the last, oh, 125 years.

What’s maddening about these screw ups is that the solution – INSTANT REPLAY! – has been available since the Kennedy administration and is used by just about every other major sport.

The entire western world, and a good piece of the eastern world as well, knew within moments that England scored against Germany Sunday.

The ball ricocheted off the top crossbar and down into the goal. Then, the ball bounced freakishly back up to the crossbar, then down again to the goal line where the German goalie, with an admirable display of nonchalance, collected the ball and distributed it like nothing much happened. That goal would have tied the score at 2. Germany won, 4-1.

FIFA rakes in something like $3 billion for the World Cup. What’s a video replay machine run, a few thousand? The way FIFA fears technological innovation, aren’t you surprised that it isn’t lighting the stadiums with torches? Sending out the scores in Morse code?

OK, FIFA, we get it. You can’t handle instant replay. Then assign an official to do nothing but watch the goal area. His one and only job is to see whether or not a goal should count. Surely there is some money in FIFA’s petty cash account to cover the expense for a couple of more officials at each match.

The World Cup is the biggest athletic event in the world, outside of the Olympics or following LeBron James in free agency.

Wouldn’t it be nice if FIFA could award the goals correctly?

Of course, with instant replay, there would have been no Hand of  God goal for Argentina against England in 1986. And, most males in Argentina today would be named Ian instead of Diego.