Goal line technology, GLT, received a well-deserved rebuff last week from MLS -- which has decided that it can do without GLT, at least for the moment. Much too expensive for a system that maybe gets used once a year.

We are being asked to believe, it seems to me, that the whole Barcelona episode was an illusion, something not real. It was sleight of hand, or foot, that for the past few years has mesmerized its opponents into helpless servility.

A brief cameo from a recent English Premier League telecast -- one of those quick cutaways to the fans. Suddenly we see the selected fan -- it's a woman, nothing unusual about that, the TV directors seem quite determined to stress the attractiveness of the EPL's female fans. But maybe there is something slightly different here -- this is not a young lady -- more in the mature range, I'd say, a rather posh lady, dressed up to the nines, with a look of bored upper-class superiority as she pats her hair into place.

This simply doesn't seem possible. Yet, here we go again. How can the New Jersey Red Bulls (please, let's stop kidding ourselves with that "New York" tag), after yet another makeover, emerge as the same old Keystone Kops of soccer?

The lament of Bobby Charlton -- Sir Bobby Charlton if you prefer that sort of thing -- is one that has been heard before. Charlton has assessed England's chances of winning the World Cup any time soon, and has decided -- correctly, it seems to me -- that those chances are pretty slim.

Comparisons being, we are told, odious, here is a small slice of odiousness to get things going. On Saturday, there were five games in Spain's premier division, La Liga. Five games in which 28 goals were scored. Average, 5.6 goals per game. Also on Saturday, there were five games in MLS. During which 11 goals were scored - average, 2.2 per game.

A couple of recent referee calls that are worth studying because they raise issues that the rulebook does not seem to accommodate. These are the details -- I'm leaving out the scorelines, as we all know that they are not to be considered when referees make decisions.