Why is there additional time in soccer

Each team takes five penalty kicks. The team that scores the most penalty-kick goals is the winner. Depending on competition rules, you may progress directly from regulation time to kicks from the penalty mark to break a tie.

Rose has worked as a print and online journalist for more than 20 years. Stoppage time was introduced in after a game between Aston Villa and Stoke where the Aston Villa goalkeeper kicked the ball out of play, ensuring that the game time would elapse before Stoke City could take a penalty kick.

Stoppage time was introduced to prevent this from happening again. There were 45 minutes allocated for each half of the game, and when that time was up, the game was up. Unfortunately, this led to many players deliberately wasting time to run down the clock.

Although some dispute it , many believe that it was a game in that persuaded the English Football Association to change the rules. On Saturday, November 21, , English teams Aston Villa and Stoke were playing against each other when the referee awarded Stoke a penalty kick in the last few moments of the game.

Aston Villa was winning at this point, and a goal for Stoke would have tied the game. Because there was no allowance for time lost at this time in the history of soccer , the goalkeeper decided he would kick the ball out of play. He was fully aware that by the time someone had retrieved the ball, the game time would be over, and Stoke would be unable to take their penalty kick. Obviously, the Stoke players and fans felt this was incredibly unfair, and the English Football Association agreed.

Soon after this event, the rules were changed, and stoppage time became part of the rules of soccer we know today. Stoppage time works by compiling the time lost for stoppages during a single half of soccer and adding that time onto the end of the allocated playing time.

When the referee pauses a game for a substitution, injury, or any other reason, the players must stop playing and wait for the referee to restart the game. But, unlike many other sports that have a set period of time allocated to play a game, soccer works differently. In association football, extra time is not played in the "golden goal" format.

If one team scores, the opposing team will have the remaining extra time to match their goal. If the score is still tied after extra time, penalties will be the next step for determining a winner. In soccer, extra time consists of two 15 minutes halves. Additional stoppage time is added to extra time halves based on time lost from substitutions, injuries , and other delays. Extra time begins with a coin toss to determine which side each team defends and who will kickoff.

There are two extra time periods that last 15 minutes each. The full amount of time is played to determine the winner. If the score remains tied at the end of extra time, a penalty shootout will be performed.

There is a five minute break before the start of extra time and players must remain on the field of play at the discretion of the referee. The golden goal format is used in some soccer tournaments and acts like "sudden-death" in other sports. Stoppage time was introduced into soccer to prevent teams from deliberately delaying the restart of a game after a stoppage. When a team is in the lead it is in their best interest for as few opportunities as possible to be given to the opposition allowing them to score a goal.

One way of doing this was to delay the restart of a game whenever possible hoping that the other team would simply run out of time to score.

To stop teams doing this, stoppage time was introduced meaning that any delay during a game was simply converted into extra minutes added onto the end of the half. For example, if the game was delayed by 2 minutes at one point then an extra 2 minutes would be played at the end of the half to make up for that delay. This is also an important fact.

Stoppage time is added on to the end of each half, not just at the end of the game. This is why when you are watching soccer you will often see the clock running up to 46, 47, 48 minutes in the first half but at the beginning of the second half, the clock starts at 45 minutes. This is also why you will see the clock in soccer running up to 92, 94, or 98 minutes at the end of a game despite the fact that a soccer game is only 90 minutes long.

What is happening in these situations is that a total of 90 minutes is still being played, but over a longer period of time to make up for any stoppages. For more information about stoppage time, check out my article — Stoppage Time in Soccer Explained.

In their advice for game officials, such as the referee, they recommend only allowing additional time to be added on to the game when an excessive delay occurs during the game. They give 7 situations where a referee should allow extra minutes of stoppage time at the end of a half. They are:. The use of stoppage time is another reason why the clock in soccer counts up. If the clock counted down it would mean that when it reached zero it would have to be reset to the number of minutes added on for stoppage time.

At lower level non-professional games a referee may stop their watch during stoppages to allow them to manage time more effectively.