I don’t understand why we as a viewing public can’t see exactly when a game will end. It also doesn’t seem like the players are aware. I was watching the end of the Guana vs. Korean Republic match today and it seemed the game ended without notice. How is time kept and who decides when the game ends?
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Ultimately, it’s up to the field referee to decide when the match/half/extra-time-halves ends, the timer is just a minimum requirement.
Stoppages in play for injuries and substitutions or even wasted time are noted by the officials and added on to the end of the game, because these happen all of the time extra time is continually added to the game to prevent players gaming the system and delaying the game when they are ahead, so the action contiues to flow.
Football has never been an exactly timed game, and it’s simply a different approach from a sport like basketball where perfectly timing a last shot with 0.5 seconds left is common. The big difference from other common team sports is that there’s no process for stopping/starting the scoreboard clock during play because the game generally flows continuously (the NFL, for example, take a different approach where the referee has specific start/stop signals and will commonly announce that the clock needs to be reset to a particular time because the scoreboard operator got it wrong).
The referee keeps the time on the field and roughly calculates* the amount the game has been stopped for things like injuries and substitutions and then adds it on at the end. The referee then indicates at the end of the half how many minutes of extra time will be played based on the stoppages through an assistant who holds up a board with the number of extra minutes.
A football/soccer game will also continue through the end of the current attack when the end of time has been reached, rather than ending at the exact time. So if there is 4 minutes of stoppage time in the second half the game will end at the end of the attack that is ongoing at 94:00. That’s not a super exact standard, but it’s generally applied consistently. The referee in South Korea/Ghana misapplied this and should have let South Korea take its corner kick (as part of the completion of its attack), which is what caused the controversy at the end of the match.
*Historically, this has been very inexact and will often be 1 minute at the end of the first half and 4 minutes at the end of the second half unless there is an injury that requires significant time for treatment or other unusual factor that causes an unusual delay. The current World Cup is using a more exact approach to timing stoppages and has been more in the 6-10 minute range. I think this is likely the proper approach because it disincentivizes faking injuries and other time wasting techniques for the team with a lead.
You’ve already got some answers explaining the time keeping, but there’s a small point of distinction to be made in the terminology being used here, too.
***Extra time*** is what would be known as overtime in American sports. This only comes into play in the knockout/elimination stages of tournaments if the teams are still tied after the initial 90 minutes. Extra time consists of 30 more minutes played, split into 15 minute halves, with the teams swapping sides in each half just like they do during the 90. This is not sudden-death (or “golden goal” as it’s known in soccer/football), but instead the full 30 minutes is played regardless of any goals scored, and a winner is determined at the end (or it goes to a penalty shoot-out). If you look at a list of scores for a knockout game that went into extra time, you’ll see the abbreviation “A.E.T.”, denoting that was the score “after extra time.”
***Added time*** or ***injury time*** is what you’re asking about where the ref tacks additional minutes onto the end of the half to account for time that the ball was not in play.
90 minutes in a game divided into two 45 minute halves. The clock never stops, even if play does for things like fouls, injuries, substitutions, etc. So **stoppage** time is added after each half to compensate for, well, stoppages. Even in stoppage time, the half might go on longer than the stated amount of added time for stoppages during stoppage time or if there is an attacking play in the box (refs tend not to blow the final whistle in an attacking play unless it takes too long, but it’s ultimately at their discretion.)
**Extra** time only happens in the knockout stages of a tournament. In regular league play or in group stages of tournaments, games can end in draws. But knockout games need a victor. So if at 90 minutes the game is still tied, two additional periods of 15 minutes (totalling 30) are played. If it’s *still* tied, the game is decided by a penalty kick shootout.
Now there’s been controversy in this world cup (aside from Qatar’s use of slave labor to build stadiums, scheduling the cup for winter thus interrupting all the big European League’s seasons because it’s being held in a desert, no alcohol and no displays of free speech, Qatar not even qualifying for the world cup, etc.) In which refs are ending games too early. Like, even before 90 minutes are up. But what can you do, they have the final call.
The rules of soccer was developed before accurate clocks were common. You can time a match using a sun dial and still be within the expected precision of the rules. Notably you do not stop the clock during penalties and other dead ball scenarios. So clock is still ticking while players are getting some water and preparing for the penalty shot or whatever. In order to play a full match, or there abouts, the referee will add time to the end of the match. This is usually signaled towards the end of the match although might not always be picked up. Additionally the referee is not allowed to stop the match when there is very active play. Even if the match time is over they have to wait for a lull in the play to stop the match. This may be a problem as an attack may in some cases take a few minutes and even when a team loses a ball in their attack they may get it back again or the other team is able to quickly counterattack before the referee have time to stop the match.
A normal soccer game ends at the 90th minute mark. The game referee’s job is to announce the amount of extra time to be played irregardless of the current score. Say for example GHana 3-2 ROK this extra time extension was 10 mins. Note that for the players in the field, unless they were bench substitutions, most have endured the full game. Imagine another sport, Boxing. In the 10th round the boxers are tired physically and mentally. Their body spent drenched in sweat. Their mind on autopilot. And fatigue already kicks in. Now, apply that to 22 men on the soccer field, 100 minutes of playtime. Their body sluggish ans more mistakes are setting in. Reactions slow down. Endurance is tested for longevity. It’s a marathon that depends on how smart their coaches are. Soccer doesn’t hold your hand on the clock. Players are told +10″ from light signboards and they keep a mental note. And ten minutes is a very long extra time for World Cup. Hope South Korea will not give up, ans congrats to the Ghana national team on the win!
You paid to watch a game for 90 minutes, so you get to watch a game for 90 minutes. The ref keeps track of stoppages, times when there is no play due to injury and other reasons. Then this time is added to the end of the half. You won’t know what the extra time is until you get to the end of the half, and even that time can be extended due to stoppages during that time. Players will have a general idea that’s there’s some time there due to game play.
Thanks for the info everyone. I have a better idea of how “added time” works now. The idea of an indefinite clock is still foreign, but I have a grasp of the concept.
Because (association) football/soccer is one of the most resistant to change sports on the planet. Despite the widespread availability of stop watches for decades now they refuse to update the rules to use them broadly. So what happens is when there is an event that requires play stopping (such as an injury, after a score, etc.) the ref stops THEIR clock, but the “game” clock keeps going. The difference between the 90 minute game clock and the clock the refs are using is called “stoppage” time and the refs have complete control over it. What makes it worse is the refs don’t even have to stop the game when THAT runs out, they can (and do) allow an in progress play to continue if they want to/feel like it should. For some reason, fans/teams/leagues simply accept this rather than wanting to move to a more transparent mechanism like basically every other timed sport on the planet.
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