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This incentive would be eliminated if goals earned in extra time didn't count towards goal differential at all. The perverse incentive is because the goal diff

This incentive would be eliminated if goals earned in extra time didn't count towards goal differential at all. The perverse incentive is because the goal differential is comparing apples to oranges with comparing a score of A-B with a play time of 90 mins to a score of X-Y with a play time of 120 mins. Counting the extra time goal as two makes this even worse.

permo-w 3y ago
under normal football tournament rules, the reason this doesn't happen is because only zero-sum games go to extra time and anything else simply ends in a draw (i.e. no goal difference change) you are correct that if they simply didn't count extra time goals towards goal difference the problem would also be fixed, but that would feel artificial as counting extra time goals as normal goals is typical in football - for example, extra time goals always count towards aggregate scorelines, whether the previous legs had extra time or not. it is comparing apples to oranges, but that's the expected behaviour, whereas forcibly avoiding draws is equally at fault, but not the expected behaviour in football