,
12 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
I’ve seen that UEFA are looking to scrap the away goals rule. I think this is a bad idea; despite being a bit of an anachronism, it makes two-legged knockout football more interesting. Here’s why! (thread – all stats for the Champions League since 2003)
First, let’s reject the idea that the AGR encourages goalless first legs. First legs in the knockout stages have been 0-0 draws 10% of the time. This is the same rate of 0-0s as in group matches between teams who finish 1st and 2nd in their groups (9.6%).
So there’s no evidence that first legs are disproportionately 0-0 draws. And while the away goals rule is a tiebreaker in the group stages, it’s rarely if ever referred to as a factor when teams set up to play each other.
Second, it’s likely that scrapping the AGR will lead to more extra time and penalties. 52% of 44 matches that were level after 180 minutes were decided by the AGR. It’s hard to know exactly how teams’ behaviour will change, but extra time periods will roughly double.
I personally don’t tend to find extra time that interesting. 13 out of 21 matches that went to extra time were goalless (and, from memory at least, usually pretty boring) and therefore went to penalties. Why would you want more of that?
(Ironically, the away goals rule is actually really effective in extra time. The added benefit the away team gets is counterbalanced by the opposition’s home advantage. I wrote about this a few years ago: 5addedminutes.com/2013/03/12/ext…) 
But this isn’t even my main point about the benefit of the away goals rule. No, the main benefit is that it introduces something totally different to football: the idea that one goal can turn a defeat into victory, and victory into defeat.
In the vast majority of football matches, a goal can at best turn defeat into a draw, or a draw into a win. But the away goals rule provides dramatic, knife-edge moments that you just don’t get in other league or knockout football.
When Manolas scored *that* third goal for Roma against Barcelona, it didn’t turn a losing situation into a drawn one. It turned it from a losing situation to a winning one. For Barcelona, the opposite. The moment was even *more* electrifying for it.
Why was Eidur Gudjohnsen’s miss against Liverpool in 2005 so heart-stopping? Because had he scored, Chelsea were effectively through to the final. Had a goal led to extra time, sure, it would be been thrilling – but not quite the same. The chance was total do-or-die.
And the away goals rule meant Barcelona couldn’t sit on their 5-1 second leg lead against PSG (and I’m sure both teams would have settled for extra time at that point). No, they had to go for it – and because of that they soon produced maybe the greatest UCL knockout moment ever.
I get not everyone will agree with this argument. But I genuinely believe that scrapping the away goals rule will take something away from two-legged knockout football – even if it’s a rule that you would probably never invent today.
