I should clarify that the margins of winning don’t matter in the NFL, in American college gridiron football it might matter a lot.
That is interesting. That is the tie break order that is common for most competitions like, say, the Premier League. It doesn’t matter at all who won the head to head clashes between the tied teams.
However the order for the Women’s World Cup is that used in the Champions League. So I guess it has nothing to do with the quality of the teams. Perhaps it is just arbitrary. One of those things that no-one thinks about until it is invoked and the stupidity then is seen. Like the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
It’s possible, but unlikely, that the goal differential between overmatched teams can also come into play as the 2nd tiebreaker, if the weaker team somehow puts it together and manages to go on a hot streak to end up tied in the standings with the team that pantsed them earlier in the tournament.
Won’t happen in this specific qualifying tournament, because not enough games are left, but had England-Latvia been the first game scheduled in their group, it’s hypothetically possible that even after a 20-0 pasting, Latvia could still end up tied with England for 1st in their group, and then the 2nd tiebreaker would come into play, providing another incentive for the English women to not let their feet off the pedal in this match.
But ultimately, I agree that using goal differential as any form of tiebreaker would just encourage strong teams to stomp on minnows. If I had my way, I would remove the goal differential tiebreakers, and have one final tiebreaker at the end of the list that says if two teams are still tied after all the previous tiebreakers have been applied, then the lower-ranked team (as determined prior to the start of the tournament) advances.
35-45 point losses in American football are a lot less dramatic than 20-0 in soccer (probably more like 5-0 or 10-0 I’d guess). That’s kind of my point- even if you’re not getting beat that badly, it’s still something that at some point becomes non-competitive.
Head-to-head results also seems to be the standard tiebreaker in the USA - for example, it’s the first tiebreaker in the NFL. One exception I can think of is the NHL, where, assuming both teams played the same number of games, head-to-head results is fourth, after games won in regulation, games won in non-shootout overtime, and games won in shootouts.
I like goal differential as a tie breaker. GD is a good measure of quality. Maybe cap the GD in individual games at something like 5. Anything larger than a 5 goal win only contributes 5 to the GD.