See also the Disgrace of Gijón (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gijón" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gijón</a>). This is between West Germany and Austria, the last match in a four-team round-robin group in the 1982 World Cup. Before this match it was clear that if West Germany won by 1 or 2 goals, West Germany and Austria would both advance; otherwise one of those teams would advance along with Algeria. You can guess what happens: West Germany scores a goal and then both teams stop trying. Since then, in the World Cup the two final matches of the group start at the same time.<p>This is probably why the 48-team World Cup starting in 2026 will have 12 groups of 4 instead of 16 groups of 3 - there are similar opportunities for collusion in the final match of a three-team group, and no easy fix.
This is hardly the first such weird outcome for a match that reflects a larger strategy of advancing in a tournament rather than simply attempting to win the match. It has been an ongoing scandal that teams collude to fix world cup matches during the qualifying rounds to ensure they both get a favourable position in the knockout rounds.<p>That is considered cheating in soccer, but if you look at a sport like cycling, it is common for "rival" teams to team up and work together to chase down a breakaway, just as it is common for "rival" members of a breakaway or echelon to cooperate to beat everyone else.<p>Why is one "match-fixing" and the other "the beauty of the sport?" Nothing more than expectations.
> Although the Barbadians' own-goal was highly unconventional, FIFA decided not to penalise the team because they were playing optimally under the circumstances.<p>The right decision. Unlike the artificial dullness of the Disgrace of Gijón, it sounds like the Barbados - Grenada situation prompted some thrilling, if chaotic, goal scoring attempts. Grenada were attacking both goals and Barbados were defending both goals! It sounds like some kind of chess variant.
A paper on incentive incompatibility of multiple round-robin and knockout tournaments: <a href="https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/1/2748/files/2019/04/Dagaev-Sonin-Tournaments-JSE.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/1/274...</a>
SBNation did a great little video on this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbuD-6BbnQw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbuD-6BbnQw</a><p>I recommend the entire "Weird Rules" series from that channel. Not only is it amusing, but it's filled with examples of accidentally creating wrong incentives for your users-- er... players.
Pretty insane that Barbados was able to prevent Grenada from scoring an own goal. I would think that would be very easy to do if you were actively trying to do it.
In chess, Grandmasters draws are terrible for spectators. Maybe they should penalize with less than 0.5 points or like in Linares, with cash or not inviting back.