Away Goals

Limey: So hey, Yank, I actually have a serious question for you for a change! What do you think of the ‘away goals’ rule in most European championship footie matches? I find it really interesting that such a concept is thoroughly unheard of in American sports. Even in a closely-contested, low-scoring sport like NHL ice-hockey, it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose at home or on the road, or how many goals you score away compared to home. Instead, they will use play-offs to decide who goes through to the finals.

I know footie is different because a tie is a result, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for Chelsea tonight. They HELD the mighty Barcelona in their own stadium to a scoreless 0-0 draw, which is quite an achievement, yet back home at Stanford Bridge, they ended up going out because they drew again, but this time 1-1. Those are the rules of course, but I just wondered what you thought of the concept, because Chelsea never actually lost, but out they go.

Yank: I think it’s unfair. I agree, two games ending in ties does not produce a winner, regardless of venue.

Limey: I know they introduced it because sometimes a team would win 1-0 at home and then in the next leg keep ten men behind the ball for the entire game and try and force a draw. But to be honest, if that’s the way a team wants to play, so be it… I don’t see anything in the rule books saying a team must play attacking football non-stop. Sure it’s dull, but defense is as much a part of the game as attack.

I think the situation where it bugs me the most is when a team wins the first leg 2-1 at home say. With the away goals rule, that actually becomes a not so great result. If in the next game, the home team eeks out a 1-0 win they’ll be the team that goes through because even though it’s 2-2 on aggregate, they scored that vital goal away from home to take them through to the next round.

The anomaly of the away goals rule was best exemplified in the 2003 Champions League semis when AC Milan met Inter Milan. The kicker here is that the San Siro Stadium, as you’re probably aware, is home to both teams. In the first leg, AC were the ‘home team’ and Inter the ‘away team’. The game was a 1-1 draw. The second leg was a 0-0 draw, so Inter won on the away goals ruling, which is just plain ludicrous.

I don’t like penalty shoot-outs much, mainly because English teams suck at them, but I’ve always thought that perhaps they could play the semi-finals at a neutral venue instead and make it a single match with extra-time kind of like what they did in the old days, and kind of like what happens with the domestic FA Cup semi-finals in England.

With the away goal rule still in place, it seems like that goal counts as ‘double’, and that just doesn’t seem right. In a league tournament you have the equality of playing half your games at home and half your games away, so any team that wants to win has to be good at both, but in a knock-out cup tournament, I think the away goal thing might need a little re-thinking. I’m all for attacking football, and less penalty shoot-outs, but sometimes it does seem the away goal thing is a little antiquated.