Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Amar Dedic pulls on U.S. player Christian Pulisic’s jersey as they competed on July 1 in their FIFA World Cup Round of 32 match at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. The U.S. team had to defend their lead a man down and for 10 minutes of stoppage time in the second half.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
U.S. goalkeeper Matt Freese deflects the ball on July 1 during his team’s FIFA World Cup Round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Santa Clara, Calif.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
U.S. player Alex Freeman vies with Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Kerim Alajbegovic for control of the ball on July 1 during their FIFA World Cup Round of 32 match at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
Imagine the Spurs are at home and trailing the Oklahoma City Thunder by two points before Victor Wembanyama hits a 3-pointer with one second left. The Thunder inbound the ball but can’t get a desperation shot off.
Article continues below this ad
Or it would, except instead of the horn sounding and the Black and Silver celebrating, the game continues until the Thunder’s ensuing possession ends.
Now imagine that the game isn’t nearly over. As the game clock reaches zero, one of the referees announces there are at least three minutes, likely more, to play. The scoreboard game clock starts counting up, but it’s irrelevant. Only one person in the arena knows when the game will end.
Welcome to stoppage time, or what I call the ugly stain on the otherwise Beautiful Game.
Article continues below this ad
ALSO READ: U.S. men overpower Bosnia, Balogun red card to advance to World Cup round of 16
As so many of us have been captivated by the 2026 FIFA World Cup, particularly with the U.S. team reaching the round of 16, those who otherwise rarely watch football — er, soccer — may be perplexed by the idea that game time seems arbitrary.
Such a simple game. Put the ball in the goal using your feet, legs, head — anything but your hands and arms. Yes, there are throw-ins, and offside can be confusing to newbies, but you get the point. Even the yellow and red cards are quickly understood as warnings and ejections.
But stoppage time is a vague and unique concept. Only Australian-rules football, which adds “time-on” at the end of 20-minute quarters is similar, but that involves adding a precise amount of time determined by an official timekeeper and relayed to the umpire. And when that elapses — game over.
Article continues below this ad
Actually, the term “stoppage time” doesn’t exist in the International Football Association Board Laws of the Game, which govern all international football, including FIFA competitions. Instead, the it refers to “additional time” or “allowance for time lost” — as if it’s been misplaced.
Law 7.3 lists multiple instances for which “time lost” must be added:
Assessment and/or removal of injured players: This is the most troublesome. No other major timed sport lets the game clock run while an injured player is tended to. It’s almost disrespectful. Serious head injuries have resulted in more than 10 minutes of stoppage time. But it could go longer. Recall Demar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety who was on the field nearly 20 minutes before leaving in an ambulance. At some point, wouldn’t common sense prevail and the referee stop the clock? If so, why not make that standard for all injuries?
Wasting time: Want to curtail stalling? Penalize it. American football has long assessed a 5-yard penalty for delay of game, and baseball now grants a ball to a batter when a pitcher exceeds the pitch clock. It’s notable that soccer does have penalties for delay of game involving one aspect of the game.
Substitutions: Swapping players is part of the game, so it seems odd that the very short time it takes to make a sub needs to be compensated. A player being replaced has 10 seconds to leave the field. The referee generally gives a few seconds of grace. After that, the referee can show a yellow card and bar the substitute from entering until the next stoppage of play, forcing the delaying team to play shorthanded. I suspect no one wants to be the player who caused his team to yield a shorthanded goal because he couldn’t get his butt off the pitch.
Disciplinary sanctions: The awarding of yellow and red cards consumes a bit of administrative time, particularly red cards, as they often involve a video review. Just stop the clock until it’s done.
Drinks or cooling breaks, considered “medical stoppages”: You know these are coming, so pause the clock until play resumes.
Video reviews: Such reviews can change the course of a match, so referees need to get them right. Stop the clock and let them focus on the call rather than how much time it takes.
Goal celebrations: Goals in soccer, like touchdowns in American football, are achievements worthy of celebrations. Let them proceed without the clock running. In hockey, the other major sport in which players seek to get an object past a goalkeeper and into a net, the clock stops after a goal is scored and starts when the referee drops the puck for the ensuing faceoff.
Other: The rule allows adding time for “any other cause, including any significant delay to a restart.” I’m not sure what else could cause a game delay. I suppose an alien spaceship landing on the pitch would require additional time once we sort out whether the visitors are here to watch the game or conquer us.
The referee is charged with keeping a mental tabulation of all such delays and announcing the tally in the final minute of regular time in each half. But that’s hardly when the game will end. Rather, it’s when the vagary is supercharged.
Article continues below this ad
Not only can stoppage time continue to accumulate during stoppage time, which only the referee knows, but even when that time expires, the referee has the discretion to continue play until it’s appropriate to blow the final whistle. In practice, that generally means allowing the team controlling the ball to play out that possession.
If a restart, such as free kick or corner kick, would occur after time has expired, the referee lets the game continue — just to see what happens.
This is different from American football, where a play that starts before time expires is allowed to finish, or basketball, where a shot taken before the buzzer counts if it goes in after the buzzer; or hockey, which similarly allows goals as long as the puck is heading toward the net before the clock hits zero.
COMMENTARY: The diversity of the World Cup mirrors the diversity of America
Article continues below this ad
Those who defend soccer’s practice say it’s fair that a team reaching a potential scoring situation be allowed to play it out.
Why? By that point in a match, both teams have had more than 45 minutes in the first half or 90 minutes by the end of the second half to score. What’s fair is that the team leading when time expires has earned the victory, not the other way around.
So, why hasn’t international football fixed this? In a word — tradition. Traditionalists view soccer’s continuous clock and accompanying stoppage time as fundamental to its identity. Yet NCAA soccer has a clock that stops for goals, injuries and other things, with no stoppage time, and it has somehow survived.
In recent months, the Guardian reported, Major League Soccer has broached the idea with the IFAB of playing international matches with a clock that stops for delays on a trial basis.
Article continues below this ad
One MLS executive referred to a stopping clock as an improvement to “stopgap procedures” for addressing “gamesmanship and match manipulation,” while another tied it to “increased transparency around timekeeping, and other measures designed to improve consistency and fan understanding.”
And there you have it. At the end of the day, it’s about transparency and fairness. Sadly, we know those are not attributes generally associated with FIFA. And one might understandably say that FIFA’s governance issues demanding fixing before worrying about stoppage time, which the game has survived for generations.
But just because football has endured stoppage time for generations doesn’t mean it should continue to do so for those to come. Dumb is dumb, and — more importantly — nontransparent is nontransparent. And the Beautiful Game should not be dimmed by the opacity of stoppage time any longer.
So while stoppage time won’t keep me from enjoying the game overall, I hope for a day when common sense prevails. If that happens, I’ll have one thing to say.
Article continues below this ad
Tony Quesada is the deputy opinion editor for the San Antonio Express-News. tony.quesada@express-news.net