It’s Time for Football to Kill off Illogical and Arbitrary Away-Goals Rule

Midway through the second half of the second leg of Chelsea’s defeat to Paris Saint Germain in the UEFA Champions League this year, Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored to make it 4-2 on aggregate. The tie was over. There was no way Chelsea were going to score three in 23 minutes. The game petered out, dully.

Just before half-time in the second leg of Manchester United’s win over Liverpool this season, Philippe Coutinho scored to make it 1-1 on the night and 3-1 on aggregate. The second half was a non-event. Again, there was no way United were going to score three. The away-goals rule, in both cases, killed the ties. Two goals were unlikely but attainable; three goals impossible.

Champions League knock out games will become more and more boring and dull until UEFA do away with the away goals rule. It’s anti football

— #BanterEra (@whatgap) April 27, 2016

The two examples involve English clubs because they’re games I happen to have been at. I’ve felt the energy leave the stadium. But there are countless examples from across Europe in the past decades. The away-goals rule was introduced to try to make football more entertaining, more attacking. It has ended up, by making some goals carry more weight than others, rendering long sections of second legs pointless.

That’s the practical effect—and we’ll come back to whether the away-goals rule ever achieved its stated aim of preventing away sides shutting up shop and playing for a draw—but let’s deal first with its basic absurdity.

It’s simply not fair. You’re a defender for an away side in the first leg and you make a mistake in the final minute that costs your side a goal. You lose 1-0, but in the home leg your side equalises and the tie goes to extra time. But suppose you make that mistake in the first minute of the home game—your team loses on away goals.

Or you draw the first leg 1-1 away. In the second leg you draw 0-0. You’re through: congratulations. Or you draw 2-2. You’re out: bad luck. All draws but some draws are more equal than others. How does that make any sense?

Apologists for the away goals rule say that scoring goals away from home is harder than scoring them at home and that that should be rewarded. Let’s imagine that’s true—although the case is far from clear—why should you not similarly be punished for failing to do the supposedly easier thing of scoring at home? When two golfers finish a …

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