What is extra time in football?

Extra time consists of two periods of 15 minutes, adding up to half an hour of additional football. Players are allowed a short breather between the end of normal time and the start of extra time, but there is no full interval between the two extra periods: the teams switch ends quickly and play resumes.

The extra periods behave like normal ones in every other respect. The referee may add stoppage time at the end of each to compensate for interruptions, and competitions commonly grant an additional substitution during extra time, with the details defined in each organisation's own regulations.

Extra time exists only where a winner is compulsory: cup finals, elimination rounds and the knockout stages of tournaments are the classic settings. In a league match a draw is a valid result, so a game level after ninety minutes ends there and the points are shared.

In two-legged knockout ties, extra time is played at the end of the second leg if the aggregate score is level. Some competitions choose to skip extra time altogether and move straight to a penalty shootout after a draw; which format applies is written into each tournament's regulations rather than the Laws of the Game.

If the deadlock survives the additional thirty minutes, the match moves to a penalty shootout. Goals scored during extra time count in the match score exactly like any other goal, while the shootout is a separate chapter, recorded apart from the score itself.

Football has experimented with shortening extra time before. The golden goal ended the match with the first goal scored in extra time, and the silver goal declared the team leading after the first extra period the winner. Both experiments were abandoned, and the modern standard is to play the full thirty minutes.