Golden goal

When a football match must have a winner on the day (e.g. in the final stages of a World Cup) and the two teams draw after the 90 minutes of ordinary time, the match is extended into extra time, with two further halves of 15 minutes each. A recent change to this is that if one team score a goal in extra-time this is called a golden goal (also called sudden death). The match finishes at that point and the team that scores wins the match.

If no team scores a golden goal during the extra time, a penalty shoot-out decides the outcome.

Even though this kind of arrangement is known as sudden death in some other games, and the term sudden death is also informally used when speaking about football, the only official term is "golden goal". The term golden goal was introduced by FIFA along with the rule change because "sudden death" was perceived to have negative connotations.

Due to the unpopularity of the golden goal from the 2002 season UEFA competitions will be different. In extra time a team leading at half-time or full-time will win but the game will not stop the instant a team scores. This change was decided after 'golden goal' victories led to some ugly behaviour from the losing teams.