Why the away goals rule is the greatest thing about European knockout football

Why the away goals rule is the greatest thing about European knockout football

Often maligned, the ruling has made both the Champions League and Europa League far better spectacles.

THE resumption of European club competition in February brings with it the spectre of the away goals rule, that great survivor of the mid-20^th century rule tweaks. This week’s Champions League and Europa League action saw the presence of Thibaut Courtois-backed VAR for the first time, all gleaming monitor screen and instant(ish) judgement. The away goals rule, by contrast, is rarely even explained correctly. “Away goals count double.” Well yes, if the game is level at the end of the second leg. Or in some competitions at the end of extra time in the second leg. Many children of the 1960s will vigorously assert that goals are the only stat that matters, yet the away goal rule, first used two years before man reached the moon, bends the very concept of a goal being a goal.

The rule was introduced to replace the logistical nightmare of replays and the gravitational nightmare of the coin toss. Manchester City may be European heavyweights in 2019 but the club’s only continental trophy to date, the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1970, came against a Górnik Zabrze side who had progressed from their semi-final against Roma on the throw of a coin (at the end of a deciding third game). A year later Everton became the first English club to exit the European Cup on away goals, having won that competition’s first ever penalty shootout in the previous round in an absolute variety pack of a campaign.

Exiting Europe on a technicality might be all the rage in 2019 but since Everton it’s only happened 11 other times to English teams in the continent’s premier competition. Monaco have been the subtle executioners most often, knocking out Manchester United in 1998, Arsenal in 2015 and Manchester City in 2017. Arsenal’s exit four years ago came in the same round that Chelsea went out on away goals to Paris Saint-Germain, and the double whammy led to ferocious calls in England for the abolition of the rule, Arsene Wenger saying “two English teams have gone out on away goals and that should be questioned because it is an outdated rule that has to be changed.”

But despite Wenger’s handily-timed protestations, the away goal rule remains in place. And if its aim was to encourage away teams to attack then there it should remain as the balance we are currently seeing in the Champions League looks almost perfect. Taking into account all Last 16, quarter-final and semi-final matches in the competition’s history, the average of 1.16 goals per game by away teams in the 2010s is the highest ever seen, while the figure of 1.76 by home teams is the third successive decade it has increased, after a steady decline between the 1950s and 1980s. We have come a long way from PSV Eindhoven winning the European Cup in 1988 having progressed from the quarter-finals and semi-finals on away goals (drawing 0-0 at home in each round) and winning a penalty shootout after another 0-0 against Benfica in the final. Their last actual win that season came in early November.

The reasons for the current positive trends are myriad, including the fact that football in the 2010s is more homogenous than ever before and going away to a European rival is usually little different to a domestic road game, especially when the make-up of the latter stages of the Champions League is the usual six or seven clubs with an occasional dark horse or two. Some use this holistic equalisation as an argument that the away goal rule should be phased out; after all, why offer this advantage when the teams are so nicely matched?

Well, precisely because of this. In the 2000s there were just three examples of a team losing by two or more goals in the first leg and still going through (including, of course, Deportivo versus Milan in 2004), which tied in with that decade’s commitment to pragmatic, defensive football. But from 2012 onwards there have been nine instances of teams turning around a deficit of two or more goals, most recently when Roma knocked out Barcelona last season, largely thanks to a late goal from Edin Dzeko in a 4-1 defeat at the Nou Camp. Seen as little more than a consolation at the end of that match, Dzeko’s strike was ultimately the moment on which the entire tie pivoted (Roma winning 3-0 in the second leg). Let’s hear it then for the away goal, which like a cleverly timed power-up in a computer game, is a lovely nuanced device that continues to add sophistication to Europe’s major club competitions.

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