All those diehard cricket enthusiasts who detest the football World Cup might have had a grin on their faces when Mattias Svanberg scored Sweden’s fourth goal in a 5-1 rout of Tunisia in Monterrey, Mexico, on Sunday.

That’s because the goal was controversially awarded following the use of Snickometer technology. ‘Snicko’ in sport is more traditionally associated with cricket. But football is now using a similar technology.

Svanberg scored just 18 seconds after coming on as a substitute by converting a Yasin Ayari free-kick.

At first, Svanberg was found to be offside at the time the free-kick was delivered. But following protests from the Swedish camp, the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) team intervened. They detected a faint touch on the ball by Liverpool striker Alexander Isak before the ball reached Svanberg. By then, Svanberg had moved back into an onside position. It resulted in the original offside call being overturned and the goal was allowed to stand.

The faint touch on the ball from Isak was spotted through the use of Waveform technology, which is similar to cricket’s Snickometer. And just like in cricket, the broadcasters could even show a graphic illustrating the precise moment that Isak had touched the ball.

In cricket, the decision review system (DRS), through the use of technology, checks whether the ball has touched the bat or gloves of the batter while moving past it. Accordingly, it shows a spike or the lack of it.

The Trionda match ball, made by Adidas for this year’s World Cup, has a microchip in it that can detect when the ball has been touched. It is part of Adidas’ Connected Ball Technology (CBT). A 500Hz inertial measurement unit (IMU) motion sensor inserted in the ball delivers data 500 times per second. Though the primary objective is to make offside calls accurate, it can also detect whether a player has touched the ball.

This is not the first time such technology has been used at top-tier football tournaments. It was also used at the 2022 World Cup and 2024 European Championships.

At the 2022 Qatar World Cup, similar technology was used to award Bruno Fernandes Portugal’s opening goal during a 2-0 win over Uruguay, even while Cristiano Ronaldo claimed that he had headed it in.

And at Euro 2024, Belgium had a goal disallowed against Slovakia when technology showed Lois Openda handle the ball in the build-up.

However, despite the use of similar technologies, there was one striking difference between cricket and football. While in cricket, the viewers get to see the spike before the decision is made, in the Sweden-Tunisia game, the graphic — resembling a cardiac monitor — was shown only after the goal had been confirmed.

Football can follow cricket in this aspect if it wishes to be more dramatic with decisions.