the.com/golden goal
Sudden death for soccer: score once in overtime and everyone else goes home.
means A rule in which the first goal scored during extra time immediately ends the match, with no further play required.
from A late-20th-century coinage from football administrators (FIFA formally adopted it in the 1990s) looking for a less morbid alternative to the borrowed term 'sudden death,' itself from American sports and, further back, dueling and tournament language where the next decisive blow ended everything. 'Golden' was chosen to cast the deciding score as a prized, glittering moment rather than a lethal one — though the rule proved unpopular for encouraging cautious play and was eventually dropped by FIFA in the early 2000s.
- introduced
- FIFA adopted it in 1993
- peak drama
- Euro 2000 final, France won in extra time
- scrapped
- FIFA ditched it in 2004, deemed too anticlimactic
- successor
- replaced by silver goal, then plain penalties