The men’s soccer team was dealt a pretty rough hand Friday when they were narrowly defeated by Indiana in the semifinals of the College Cup. After an incredible performance that included tying the game at 2-2 with only 10 minutes to go in regulation time, the Terps were given no chance for a rejoinder after the Hoosiers scored the dreaded “golden goal” in the last minute of the second overtime. Although there probably wouldn’t have been time after that goal for a Maryland counterattack, it still seems unfair that after 110 minutes of close play, NCAA rules still allow a tied game to be decided in an instant by a lucky touch of the ball.

And I’m not the only one who feels that “sudden death” overtime takes some of the fairness out of a match. In fact, most of the world agrees with me. FIFA, the international governing body for soccer which sets the official rules for professional play, recently reverted to an overtime policy that calls for tied games to be decided by one 30-minute extra period, according to the FIFA website. Whichever team has the most points at the end of that period is the winner, so both teams have ample time to score and retie the game if they fall behind, forcing a penalty kick shootout.

This decision came after a tumultuous history of the golden goal, which was introduced in 1993. A number of high-profile international soccer matches have been decided by golden goals, and they tended to result in the losing team and its fans walking away feeling as if they had been dealt an injustice. Since a tied game generally indicates an even level of play between two squads, a loss by golden goal could always be viewed by the losing team a loss by technicality.

Even after the change has been made to abolish the golden goal, resentment remains for countries like Italy, where the Italian Sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport complained the decision had come “four years too late.” Italian losses by golden goal to Korea in a 2002 second-round World Cup match and to France in the 2000 European championship still weigh heavily on the emotions of Italian soccer fans, cementing their opposition to the “sudden death” policy. A survey on the website for Corriere della Sera, another Italian paper, showed 85 percent of their readers in favor of abolishing the golden goal.

In making its decision, the International Football Association Board consulted with a “wide spectrum” of soccer players, coaches and referees, and found an overwhelming consensus among the European, Asian and South American soccer communities. Not only was the golden goal rule widely held to be unfair to the team who was scored upon, but many also felt it put too much pressure on the referee, according to the UEFA website.

Perhaps most importantly, however, is the perception that the golden goal rule was responsible for what Europeans call “negative football.” The game becomes negative when a team knows they can lose a tied game merely by conceding a single goal, and so they concentrate more on that risk than on attacking the ball in an attempt to score.

The Terps were visibly tired by the time they reached overtime on Friday, but anyone who had just seen them tie a game in the 81st minute that the TV commentators were already calling in favor of Indiana knew this Maryland team never gives up under any circumstances. But the men were well aware that golden goals were in effect, and any defensive slip-up would be the end, and perhaps as a result they took only 3 shots in the two overtime periods, concentrating instead on deflecting all but one of Indiana’s 11.

That’s the real tragedy of Friday’s semifinal loss. I’m not saying it wasn’t fair, because we lost by the rules that are on the books, and there probably wouldn’t have been time left for the Terps to equalize after Indiana’s goal with only 48 seconds to go in the second overtime. But if Maryland had entered that overtime with the knowledge that even if they were scored upon, they still would have a chance to fight their way back into the game, things may have been different. We’ll never know of course, but with any luck the NCAA will follow the lead of the rest of the world in declaring the sudden death of the golden goal.

Alex Dzwonchyck is a senior linguistics major. He can be reached at alexdz@wam.umd.edu.