History of the FIFA World Cup as earning the Bronze Ball award. He led Bulgaria to a shock 2-1 win over defending champions Germany in the quarter-finals, before losing 2–1 to Italy and losing the third place play-off to Sweden, 4–0. The 1998 World Cup was held in France, and had an expanded format featuring 32 teams. Iran beat the Maldives in qualification by the widest margin in World Cup history – 17–0. In the finals, the second round match between France and Paraguay witnessed the first golden goal in World Cup history, as Laurent Blanc scored to give the hosts a 1–0 victory. Hosts France
Golden goal confusion when events could choose among several different extra time rules. The golden goal in the Euro 96 final was controversial, as the Czechs, who were on the losing side argued that the Germans' winning goal was offside. The silver goal has been called illogical in that it denies the losing team the chance of saving the match simply by virtue of when the goal is scored, a point best illustrated in the Euro 2004 semi-final: if the Greek goal had been scored 15 seconds later, that is immediately after the extra-time interval (instead of the last two seconds of