Golden soccer goals mean that a particular goal is made when the game is in overtime, which is much like “sudden death”. Overtime is used with a lot of sports, so that the game ends when one team makes a goal before the other one does. When this happens, the team that scored is the winner of that particular game, and the game is then declared to be over. When they first used overtime in the game of soccer, the match would be over during overtime when a team scored the first goal. That winning goal was deemed the “golden goal” – a term first introduced in the year 1992 – and the team that made the golden goal was declared the victor. Soon, “sudden death” was out and the term golden goal was in, and it was utilized by soccer’s governing body, FIFA, for more than ten years.

A lot of players and their fan bases did not think that golden soccer goals worked very well, because a team would play differently in anticipation of this possibility. If neither of the teams made a golden goal during the time allotted for overtime, the game would be settled with penalty kicks. The people who came up with this version of sudden death believed that calling it a “golden goal” would make the games seem more dramatic when they went into overtime. However Because of the way the teams played with more caution and deliberate intention, there were actually less soccer goals made during regulation play, and the action was not as dramatic as the officials had hoped.

There were championships in European Football that were actually won because of the golden goal, and not because of the amount of soccer goals made during the game. The Czech Republic, was beaten by Germany in 1996 and Italy was beaten by France in 2000, all because of the golden soccer goal. Because of the number of players and fans that did not like the golden goal, “silver goals” were then created to break ties. With this method, the game was extended for fifteen minutes, and the team that made the greatest amount of soccer goals during the fifteen minute period was declared the eventual winner. Silver goals were not liked very well either, and the method was tossed out of professional games after only a couple of years in practice.

Nowadays, if a sports soccer game is tied, then the game is extended by two fifteen minutes halves in addition to the regular 90 minute game. The winner is declared by having the greatest amount of soccer goals (and thus the greatest amount of points) when the addition two halves are complete. If the teams are still tied at the end of the two additional halves, then penalty shots are made to determine the winner. This method is now used in the soccer games that are played by professionals, and is very well liked. This method is more dramatic, increases the number of soccer goals made in a game, and encourages the teams to be more tactical during the course of the game play.