Imagine Scoring On Your Own Goal to Win

[Thorin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_v_Grenada_(1994)

Right, so there was this soccer tournament called the Caribbean Cup.  Back in 1994 they had this rule that any goal scored in overtime counted as two goals.  And there were two teams (Barbados and Grenada) playing each other, with one (Barbados) needing to win by two goals to move on to the semifinals.

So Barbados scored two goals and got ahead, but then Grenada scored one goal.  At this point, even if Barbados won Grenada would get to go to the semis due to Barbados needing to win by two.  Barbados realized there wasn't enough regular time to score another goal, so they kicked the ball in their own net, thereby tying the game and forcing overtime where they could score one goal and have it count as the two goal spread they needed.

Grenada caught on and tried to score on both nets as a win and a loss by one both meant Grenada would go on to the semis.  So in the last five minutes of the game, Grenada was trying to score on both nets and Barbados was defending both nets.

It went to overtime and Barbados eventually scored, so their tactic of scoring on their own net actually worked and sent them on to the semifinals!

This is a good example of "unintended consequences".

[Lazybones]

That is hilarious.

[Thorin]

I found it while trying to find details about an end-of-season game where the Montreal Canadiens pulled their goalie to try and score goals, because at the time it only mattered how many they scored not how many were scored against them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969%E2%80%9370_NHL_season#Canadiens.2FRangers_tiebreaker