WTF is extra time?

WTF is extra time?

Extra time is two additional 15-minute periods played when a knockout-round match is tied after 90 minutes. It is not overtime. It has a different name for a reason.

Why doesn't soccer just go to a shootout immediately?

Because soccer respects suffering. That is the full answer. The slightly longer answer is that extra time gives teams a genuine chance to settle the match with actual soccer before surrendering the result to a penalty shootout, which is basically a coin flip that requires cleats.

Here is the scenario. It is a knockout match. Round of 16. Ninety minutes have come and gone. The score is 1-1. In the NFL, you'd flip a coin and send both teams to sudden death. In the NBA, you'd add five minutes and watch someone score 11 points in them. Soccer says no. Soccer adds thirty minutes, splits them into two halves, and makes everyone sit down for a short rest in between before doing it all again. The teams play all thirty minutes regardless of who scores. Nobody goes home early.

That is the wrinkle most Americans miss. There is no sudden death in extra time. Score a goal in the 95th minute and the other team still has twenty-five minutes to respond. You are not done. You are just briefly winning.

When does extra time actually happen?

Only in knockout rounds. Group stage matches can end in a draw and everyone moves on with their lives. Extra time exists specifically for matches where someone must be eliminated. The World Cup, FA Cup, Champions League knockouts. Anywhere the bracket demands a winner, extra time shows up first.

Regular season draws in leagues like the Premier League or MLS are perfectly legal outcomes. They hand out a point to each team and call it a Tuesday. Extra time is not involved. Extra time does not care about your regular season.

What actually happens during those thirty minutes?

The players are already exhausted. You should understand this going in. These are people who have been running at high intensity for ninety minutes. Now you are asking them to run for thirty more.

The first fifteen-minute period happens. Both teams play. The referee blows the whistle. Everyone collapses onto the grass for a few minutes. This is the mandatory rest break, and it is one of the stranger sights in sports. Professional athletes lying on a field like they have given up on the concept of vertical. Coaches crouch next to them and deliver instructions to people who are staring at the sky.

Then they stand up and do another fifteen minutes.

If the score is still level after all of it, the match goes to a penalty shootout. Extra time ran out of ideas. The shootout takes over.

Is this like NHL overtime?

No. NHL overtime is sudden death. One goal ends it. Extra time does not work that way, and soccer has actually tried sudden death before. It was called the Golden Goal rule. A knockout match would end the moment anyone scored in extra time. FIFA used it in major tournaments from 1993 to 2004. It did not improve the game. Players became so terrified of conceding that they stopped attacking entirely, which produced some of the most cautious, joyless football ever recorded. FIFA abolished it. Sudden death went back to where it belongs, which is hockey.

What soccer landed on is a format that keeps both teams alive and keeps the contest resembling something. It works better. It is also thirty minutes of watching increasingly tired people make increasingly questionable decisions, which is either compelling television or the longest wait of your life depending on where your loyalties sit.

Still confused?

Fine. Match tied after 90 minutes in a knockout game. Thirty more minutes. Two halves of fifteen. Both teams play the full thing no matter what. Still tied after that. Penalty shootout. You now know more than half the people who will be watching this summer.

If you want to understand what happens when extra time fails to produce a winner, read the penalty shootout explainer on wtfis.soccer. It will not make you feel better about the format, but at least you will understand why grown adults are crying.

— The Scoreboard