Almost 30 years ago, an unremarkable soccer match and an unremarkable tournament became the stuff of legend.

Had it not been for a confluence of events and rules that all came together at one point in one game, it never would have happened.

The result was something totally ridiculous that has never happened before or since.

Learn more about the 1994 match between Grenada and Barbados and the dumbest When I say that this was the dumbest game in history, I'm not referring to the

players or the coaches. In fact, as you'll soon see, they were extremely rational

and logical in what they ended up doing.

To understand the absurd events which took place, it's necessary to know the backstory of what

led up to it.

The event in question was the 1994 Caribbean Cup tournament.

It was the annual soccer slash football competition of the nations involved in the Caribbean football

union.

At the time, FIFA, the association that governs international football, was experimenting

with rules for their various regional tournaments.

For this tournament, they had some unique stipulations.

They don't sound strange at first glance, but the implications of the rules turned out to be absurd.

The first rule was that there were to be no ties in any of the early stage matches.

This is not the norm for FIFA sanctioned tournaments, but it isn't crazy either.

Knockout games never end in ties, so this was just an extension of that.

The other unique rule was called the Golden Goal Rule.

To discourage teams from playing for a tie and going to a shootout,

any goal which was scored in extended time,

which is basically the time after regulation is over

...