Time for change
Leading European coaches call to end away goals rule
You have played 180 minutes of football and the scores are level but instead of extra time, one of the team’s goals are judged to be worth more than the other’s and they are allowed to progress. It sounds ridiculous when explained in such simple terms but that’s exactly what happens at the very top of the game.
And it is at the top of the game where the calls for change are loudest. Jose Mourinho and his compatriots at Europe’s elite clubs have called on UEFA to look at the away goals rule, arguing that it is time for change after more than 50 years.
The beginning
The away goals rule was introduced in the 1960s, starting with the European Cup Winners’ Cup in the 1965-66 season and gradually made its way into the European Cup, being introduced round by round until it was place for every round but the final by the early 1970s.
Back then European competition remained a step into the unknown. The continent was divided by the Iron Curtain and while football did much to break the barrier between East and West, the reality was that travel was not as free and easy as today. That, in part, was also down to plane technology, the lack of routes, airports and planes themselves. Getting to games was an ordeal that could involve several modes of transport and several hops between airports.
This has eased so much that we take it for granted. When Barcelona played Inter Milan in the 2010 Champions League semifinal first leg, Pep Guardiola’s team had to travel the whole game by road because the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull made flying impossible. The journey took 14 hours. Barcelona lost 3-1.
Football was different, too. The Inter side of Helenio Herrera was locking the door on opposition attacks with the Catenaccio system that would become a byword for parsimonious Italian defending. Home teams were the clear favorites in each leg and the rule was introduced to coax them into attacking on their travels – it’s better to lose 3-1 than 2-0 was the view from the top.
Laws tweaked
While that rule has remained, other laws of the games have been tweaked. Offside has become more open since the idea of attackers needing to be actively involved before they can be offside, effectively making it more difficult for defenders to play the high lines and offside traps that were the trademark of teams through to the early 1990s.
Similarly, the backpass law has gone too. Liverpool were famous for their use of the ball in both directions: slicing through the opposition defense to score and then keeping hold of it at the back as they moved it around the defense before giving it to the keeper. As anyone who plays in small-sided games where goalkeepers are still allowed to pick the ball up from a pass from their defender, this seems beyond bizarre nowadays. Even the introduction of a limit on the time that the keeper can hold on to the ball in his hands is a move for more attacking football.
Pitches too – as Alex Ferguson pointed out in 2014 to the Guardian, another time that altering the away goals rule was under discussion at UEFA at the behest of the coaches of Europe’s top clubs – have become more suited to attacking football. The chances of playing on a plowed field are slim these days, even in the early qualifying rounds of the Champions League.
Ferguson’s great rival Arsene Wenger has called for change to the rule since 2013 and anything the clamor to change them has becoming louder in the last five years with fans, coaches and the media adding their voices.
Opposite effect
While away goals worked in encouraging away teams to attack, it now has the opposite effect. The rule encourages the home team in the first leg to shut up shop. Not conceding is more important than scoring and the football suffers. It’s bad for the fans watching at the stadium and around the world, and it can’t be much fun for the players or coaches either. Scoring away from home is not as unlikely as it used to be, if anything, it is scoring at home that is becoming more difficult in the two legs of knockout football. Right now, contests can effectively be ended with an early second-leg away goal that means a team has to score four, rather than three, in order to win outright. It takes the wind out of the sails of both players and fans. While they stand a chance if they still believe, it’s hard to keep the faith when the task is that one more goal insurmountable.
It’s time for change, and change is not without precedent, even in the halls of UEFA. Other rules have come and gone – rules intended to make games more exciting at that. The Golden Goal and Silver Goal came and went, as did the Americanstyle penalty, where players would get the ball at halfway rather than from 12 yards and be allowed to dribble.
At the very least, extra time at the end of a second leg should be awaygoal free. One goal can’t be worth more than another at that stage. That’s as senseless as the Champions League’s Derby della Madonnina in 2003 – after two draws Inter went out on away goals in a stadium that both they and Milan call home.
It’s time to send the away goals rule packing.