written with determining the #1 team, so someone inserted the unnecessary extra word ("highest" or "next" or whatever), which in that case is fine.

Later, it was decided to use the same rule to break a tie for 2nd place, and the unnecessary extra word was not not removed; in this context, it can be confusing, depending on how one interprets it.

To me, it seems very clear that the spirit and intent of the procedure is to use the record against the best common opponent(s) as the tiebreaker, as it is when breaking a tie for first-place and everywhere else in the rules. Rather than the record against the second-best common opponent, which makes no sense.