Team allow opponents to score after accidental goal

Norwegian football doesn't often hit the headlines, but an amazing sequence of events in a top flight match at the weekend has got the entire sport buzzing after a fantastic demonstration of fair play.

Lillestrom were hosting Brann in an Eliteserien clash on Sunday, and with both teams in the relegation zone there was huge pressure to clinch three points.

An end-to-end first half had ended 3-2 in favour of Brann and the stage was set for a thrilling conclusion to the match - but the match changed just four minutes into the second half when a Lillestrom player went down injured, and the home side booted the ball into touch to allow him to get treated.

When the game restarted Brann midfielder Erik Mjelde thumped the ball back to the home side's goalkeeper, as etiquette dictates in the circumstances.

That's when it all went horribly wrong: the ball bounced clean over Lillestrom's Icelandic goalkeeper Stefan Logi Magnusson and into the net, putting the visitors 4-2 up and sparking ugly scenes as the furious home side rounded on Mjelde for scoring. Even Mjelde's own team-mates had a go at him for what they saw as poor sportsmanship.

It seems pretty unfair to have blamed Mjelde - after all, as the video above shows it was clearly a casual whack that only found its way into the net by fluke - but Brann's players decided to do the right thing and let their opponents score an unopposed goal of their own in reply.

Lillestrom's Björn Bergmann was allowed to stroll up the pitch and knock the ball into the net to cut the deficit back to one goal... or at least that was what was supposed to happen. Somehow the memo hadn't quite reached Brann's Polish goalkeeper Piotr Leciejewski, who bizarrely did his level best to prevent the attacker from scoring.

Not that it mattered: Bergmann rounded Leciejewski and slotted home, incidentally completing a hat-trick as he did so.

It didn't do Lillestrom any good, though: the Gods of Football and Karma came together to reward Brann for their sportsmanship as they hung on for a victory to climb out of the Norwegian drop zone.