Adios to the Golden Goal

Over the weekend, the powers that be in the soccer world officially killed the Golden Goal overtime format in use since Euro 96. Golden Goal is the same as the NFL's sudden death overtime - first to score wins. The idea was to promote attacking play and discourage teams from playing for a draw in overtime to get to penalty kicks. FIFA, I guess, decided it wasn't working. It also killed a variant called the Silver Goal rule, which allow the overtime half period to be played out even if a goal was scored (so the other team has a chance to tie the game up again). It worked pretty well in last year's UEFA Cup final.

Hopefully, this will also spell the end of MLS's experiments with overtime.