A tied soccer match means very different things depending on the competition. In a league season, a draw is simply recorded and both teams move on. In a knockout competition, where only one team can advance, a tie at the end of regulation triggers an entirely separate set of procedures designed to produce a winner. This article explains why that difference exists and walks through exactly how extra time and penalty shootouts work.

Why Draws Are Fine in League Play but Not in Knockout Play

League competitions are built around a season-long points system, most commonly awarding three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss. Under this structure, a draw is a completely valid and meaningful result; both teams earn a point, and the overall league table sorts itself out based on cumulative points gathered across many matches over the course of the season. There is no need to force a winner on any single matchday because the standings themselves absorb the outcome.

Knockout competitions, such as single-elimination tournaments and cup rounds, work differently. Each tie exists specifically to eliminate one team and advance the other, so a drawn result at the end of regular time does not resolve anything. The competition format requires a mechanism that guarantees a winner emerges by the end of the match, which is where extra time and, if necessary, penalty shootouts come in.

Extra Time: Two Additional Periods

When a knockout match is level at the end of normal time, which consists of two 45-minute halves, the match proceeds to extra time rather than ending in a draw. According to the IFAB Laws of the Game, extra time consists of two further periods, each lasting 15 minutes, for a total of 30 additional minutes of play. As with the regular halves, the teams change ends between the two periods of extra time, and any stoppage time deemed necessary by the referee is added at the end of each period, just as it is in normal time.

Extra time is played under the same Laws of the Game as the rest of the match, including the same rules on fouls, cards, and offside. Teams are typically allowed to make additional substitutions during extra time beyond what they used in normal time, with the exact number governed by the competition's specific rules rather than the Laws of the Game themselves, since substitution limits are a competition-level decision rather than a universal law. If a team scores more goals than its opponent across the two periods of extra time, the match ends there and that team advances, without needing to proceed to a shootout.

A Historical Note: Golden Goal and Silver Goal

At various points in the sport's history, some competitions experimented with rules designed to end extra time the moment a winner became mathematically certain. The golden goal rule, used in several major tournaments mainly during the 1990s and early 2000s, ended the match immediately the instant either team scored during extra time, without waiting for the full 30 minutes to be played. A related variation called the silver goal was tried briefly as well, under which the match would end at the halfway point of extra time if one team held a lead at that break, rather than ending the instant a goal was scored.

Both approaches were intended to encourage more attacking, decisive play during extra time by raising the stakes of every scoring chance. In practice, many observers felt these rules instead encouraged overly cautious play, since conceding first meant an instant, irreversible loss. Both the golden goal and silver goal rules have since been discontinued by the major governing bodies that once used them, and modern extra time is played to its full two 15-minute periods regardless of when or how a goal is scored.

The Penalty Shootout: Procedure and Rules

If the score remains level after extra time, the match proceeds to a penalty shootout, formally described in the Laws of the Game as "kicks from the penalty mark." It is worth noting that this procedure is technically not considered part of the match itself, which is one reason shootout goals are not added to a player's or team's overall match goal tally in most record-keeping conventions, even though the shootout result decides who advances.

The shootout follows a defined procedure:

  1. The referee first tosses a coin to decide which goal will be used for all the kicks, generally chosen for practical or safety reasons.
  2. A second coin toss determines which of the two teams will take the first kick.
  3. Only players who were on the field of play at the end of extra time, including any substitutes who had already entered the match, are eligible to take part. If a team finished the match with fewer players than its opponent due to a sending-off, the opposing team must reduce its own number of kick-takers to match.
  4. Teams alternate kicks, one after the other, with each kick taken by a different eligible player until every eligible player on both sides has taken a turn.
  5. Initially, each team takes five kicks. If one team has already secured an unreachable lead before all five kicks are taken, the shootout can end early since the outcome is already decided.
  6. If the score remains level after both teams have taken their five kicks, the shootout proceeds to sudden death, where the teams continue taking one kick each, in alternating turns, until one team scores and the other misses within the same round.
  7. Every player on the team, including the goalkeeper, must take a turn before any player can kick a second time, which prevents a team from relying repeatedly on its most reliable kicker.

Goalkeepers may be substituted during the shootout only in the case of injury, and the goalkeeper facing each kick must remain on the goal line, between the goalposts, facing the kicker until the ball is struck. These rules exist to keep the shootout as fair and standardized as possible, given how much is riding on a procedure that, by its nature, isolates individual moments far more than the balance of a full 90-minute match.

Quick Recap

Want to test what you just learned?

Take the Soccer quiz →