The weirdest soccer match and game theory

It seems to be an indicator of when are arbitrary rules more important than the game itself... If you do things which make you lose in a normal game, just to satisfy some organisational requirement, it gives an impression that the rules are either not thought through, or there are too many dependencies that make the game itself matter less.

In this example - either winning or losing by one goal meant winning, but not doing anything meant losing... which goes completely against the basic rule of the game (team scoring more goals wins).

The same sort of thing happens regularly in any sport where any sort of external outcome is dependent on individual games. The best example is any league that relies on final standings to determine the next season's draft order. When the team with the worst record gets to pick first in the following year's draft, it begins to make little sense for teams close to the bottom of the standings to win games at all.