A Soccer Match For The History Books

I just read about an infamous qualifying match between Barbados and Grenada that happened during the 1994 Caribbean Cup. The tournament had a standard "golden goal" procedure for deciding tied matches, whereby the first team to score in extra time would be declared the winner. But tournament organizers added an odd rule that winning in overtime would earn two tourney points, instead of the usual one point for a win in regular time.

At the end of qualifying matches, Granada was set to play Barbados to see who would get the last slot. Barbados needed 2 points to slip though, so under the normal rules, they would have not had a chance, even if they won. With the new rule in place, however, Barbados had a chance by steering the game to a draw, and then scoring in extra time for the needed 2 points.

So, as the game neared the final whistle, with Barbados ahead by a goal, the team deliberately sent the ball to the back of their own net, giving Granada the equalizer to force a draw. With seven minutes remaining, the Granadans knew that if they lost the match in regular time, they would still advance - Barbados couldn't make up the point differential. But the Barbadans knew this as well, and so began to defend both goals! A goal for either team would sell the end of the game, and so Barbados split up and crammed the nets at either end, ultimately preventing Grenada from scoring and knocking them out of the tournament. Barbados went on to lose to the Trinidad and TObago, who won the CUp, and the bizarre rule was never used again, for obvious reasons.