[....] penalises you for coming late to matches
There seems to be that space in which you may join the game, between coming too late to see a game begin, but not so late that you've missed too much of the first half game, that it happens that your team have either just scored a goal, or more likely, conceded one.
Non-goal-scoring DL scored a suspicious goal out of nothing, my eye caught the light blue-white icon to the left only a second later, and sure enough, opposing manager had just logged in.
It's probably bull****, but I think I've seen this happen several times. Often enough to warrant picking up that conspiracy theory flag.