Extra Time, Replays, and Coin Flips: How Soccer Learned to Break Ties

Before penalty shootouts, tournaments were decided in ways you won't believe.

<p>The penalty shootout feels eternal. It isn't. For most of soccer history, a drawn knockout match had far stranger solutions.</p>

<p>The classic fix was the replay: come back another day and play the whole match again. Some ties took multiple replays to settle.</p>

<p>When schedules got tight, tournaments resorted to drawing lots — championship dreams literally decided by a coin flip or a name from a hat.</p>

<p>The shootout was adopted in the 1970s to put the outcome back in players' hands. Cruel, yes — but at least it's soccer deciding soccer.</p>