Cheating, unsportsmanlike... The world is full of things that are legal but considered odious. Ultimately, if a sport becomes dominated by winning-at-the-expense-of-fan-enjoyment, it gets into trouble, so either the rules need another bug fix, or the sport evolves so that fans come to accept the behaviour as part of how the game is played.

In cycling, fans consider the wheeling and dealing within the peloton of who works, who doesn't work, and who actively disrupts the work as part of what makes the sport interesting. In soccer, fans protest and throw things onto the field when two teams play, one scores a goal, and then for the rest of the game both teams pass the ball around without trying to do any more scoring.

Is it cheating when both teams coöperate but simply enterprising use of the rules when one team attempts to score an own goal and the other team is forced to defend both goals?

Regardless of the fine print in the rules, the larger issue is what the fans expect from a soccer match.

> although you could say it is unsportsmanlike.

I don’t think anyone rational would agree that it was unsportsmanlike.

The situation was very clear, if they won by a single goal their season was over. The goal to make it 2-1 occurred in the 83rd minute and they didn’t adopt this strategy until the 87th minute. In those intervening 4 minutes they attempted to score and restore their 2-goal lead.

There are other examples of locally detrimental behavior that aims for strategic advantage, such as the intentional walk in baseball.

Or that sometimes in football/soccer a team will intentionally kick the ball out of bounds to stop play because of an injury to a player, and the other team responds afterward by throwing the ball in to the other team or kicking it out themselves.

Technically it is match manipulation by most association regulations, even if not for financial gains. But it has always been part of the meta-game in such competitions, though this case was too extreme!