ITV today blamed human error for a glitch that led to thousands of supporters missing England's opening World Cup goal.
Viewers of the channel's high definition HD service reported the channel had temporarily gone down during the USA match, and switched to an advert.
When the live coverage returned viewers discovered they had missed captain Steven Gerrard's fourth minute strike.
ITV last night released a statement blaming their transmission providers for the glitch.
The statement read: "An error by ITV's transmission providers, Technicolor, meant that ITV1 HD's coverage of the England v USA match was interrupted for approximately 20 seconds. ITV1's standard definition coverage was unaffected.
"ITV immediately investigated this issue and a preliminary report has indicated that the cause of the problem was human error at Technicolor, in London.
"ITV's Sport production team in South Africa, who have produced high quality coverage throughout the tournament, were in no way responsible."
Furious fans immediately complained, with some describing the service as a "joke".
Richard Cross, Group Technology Director, ITV plc said: "We apologise unreservedly to viewers for the unacceptable interruption to high definition coverage of the match.
"We met with Technicolor first thing this morning to put in place measures to address the issue and to ensure that Technicolor takes the appropriate action with immediate effect."
Social networking site Twitter was inundated with complaints about the coverage.
One poster named "Timwellspent" wrote: "ITV HD missed England's goal because it was playing an advert. A joke and embarrassment quite frankly."
Another poster "Paul-Durand" added "ITV HD is a joke. First England goal of the World Cup, and there was a Hyundai advert on."
The gaffe mirrors similar scenes last year when ITV missed the crucial winning goal during a tense FA Cup tie.
The channel switched to an automated ad break as eventual finalists Everton scored the winning goal against Merseyside rivals Liverpool.
The chairman of ITV Michael Grade was forced to issue an apology for the "inexcusable glitch".
