Soccer · Rules and guides
Soccer scoring rules and guides
Everything you need to keep a soccer score right: how goals and draws work, what happens when a knockout game is level, how long youth games last and how tournaments break ties.
Soccer, called football in most of the world, has one of the simplest scoring systems in team sport: every goal is worth 1, and the team with more goals wins. The questions start at the edges. Does an own goal count? What happens when a cup game is still level after 90 minutes? How long is a U8 game, and why did the team with the better goal difference not go through?
Start with how to keep score in soccer, which covers goals, stoppage time, extra time, shootouts and league points, and scores a full match goal by goal. Then go deeper where you need it: youth soccer game length by age, the penalty shootout rules and youth tournament tiebreakers.
Every rule here is checked against the IFAB Laws of the Game, and the youth pages against US Soccer and the youth soccer associations that set local rules. When you want to keep score during the game, the soccer score tracker app adds a goal with one tap on a team's side of the screen.
Scoring guides
Formats and variations
Last reviewed September 25, 2026
Keep score with one tap.
Sport Score Tracker keeps soccer score on iPhone and Apple Watch, so you can play instead of counting. Offline, no ads, no account.