World Cup rules: How extra time, penalty kicks work at 2022 tournament

The 2022 FIFA World Cup arrives in Qatar with the host nation facing Ecuador on Sunday, November 20. In the opening round of the competition, 32 countries are divided evenly into eight groups, which each team playing three given matches to begin. After the group stage, teams advance into the knockout round where single-elimination matches eventually determine the final winner.

In the case of two teams facing a tie score by the conclusion of regulation, there are additional rules in play that will help determine which team advances further into the tournament, with the other team being eliminated. These rules are extra time and the penalty shootout.

Extra time only comes into play once the knockout round commences in the tournament. At this point of the competition, it's win or go home for the teams that are still alive in the World Cup. If two teams are still tied by the conclusion of the match, then two full periods of 15 minutes are played between the teams to determine the winner.

There is no “Golden Goal” in this scenario, which is conversely more or less a “sudden death” situation where the first goal scored results in the respective team winning the match. In extra time, the two teams are required to play the full two additional 15-minute periods to determine the winner. If after the conclusion of extra time both teams are still tied, then a penalty shoot-out will ultimately determine the winner.

A penalty shootout involves the teams attempting penalty kicks, which consists of a kick that is spotted 12 yards away from the goal. Here only one offensive player faces the goalkeeper. The objective here is simple. The offensive player looks to score a goal while the goalkeeper hopes to deny the attempt. A referee tosses a coin to decide the goal at which the kicks will be taken and subsequently tosses the coin a second time to determine which team will take the first kick.

Each team takes turns to kick from the penalty mark. Essentially, it's a “best-of-five” kicks scenario to determine the winner. If one team has scored more goals than the other could possibly reach with all of its remaining kicks, the shootout immediately ends, regardless of the number of kicks remaining.

If after these five rounds of kicks the teams have scored an equal number of goals (or neither team has scored any goals), additional rounds of one kick each will be used until one team scores and the other misses. The team that scores the most goals at the end of the shootout will be the winner of the match.

  
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