Quote:
Originally Posted by wc1934
Still unbeaten.
Two goals in extra time - kills me that extra time seems so arbitrary. They put up 6 minutes and it went to what - 9?
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i know this is hard to get used to if one is accustomed to team sports with a definite countdown clock, but the Ref in football has leeway in deciding when to blow the whistle. As the time is total, not time played, it is up to the ref to decide which time stoppages are considered normal happenings during a match and which are considered extraordinary and warrant time added.
The "additional/injury time" is also decided by the ref on the pitch, not by the person holding up the info board
*) It gets announced as a convenience for spectators, but its not a law.
If some minutes are added, and there are incidents like goals scored, players substituted, injuries treated, or deliberate slow play by one of the teams *within* that added time, the ref has full authority to factor that in. There are no hard rules also, which kind of event causes how many seconds added time, only rough guidelines, like 30sec + per substitution, but they are not binding;
The Ref would also have full authority to *not* do that - the only thing he/she can *not* do is signal 4min overtime and then end the game earlier.
*)I remember when that rule with the additional time announced on the info board was introduced, i think at some WC. Not all football pundits were in on that new rules, although i am sure there were plenty of trainings by FIFA on that subject but those are for rookies, not for experienced football commentators, i mean duh, right? So one of the latter, legendary Gert Rubenbauer from Germany, was completely surprised at the first match an official held up one of those boards showing a "1" (for 1 min added).
He was like "OMG what THE HELL is he DOING??? He's substituting the GOALKEEPER?????"