D3D4 columnist Darren Young believes that scrapping the away-goals rule from European competition is an inevitable yet misguided decision for UEFA to be considering…

Read on to find out why….

Will A Rule Change Keep Away Goals Out Of The Nets?

Der, der…der, der [or ‘Les grandes equips’ if you know the words]… The Champions.

After the excitement of the World Cup and start to the new domestic season, it’s back. The UEFA Champions League returned last week to begin its latest instalment.

Last season it ended up being all about the overhead kicks and unfortunately, all about the goalkeepers. Or one in particular. There is no Loris Karius in this year’s competition (he’s in the Europa League with Besiktas) but his errors in the final underlined the importance that a goalkeeper has for their team. As far back as 1977, Brian Clough paid a (then) huge sum for England goalie, Peter Shilton to underpin Nottingham Forest’s ascent to European Champions (twice).

This year’s Game week 1 really whetted the appetite for what might be ahead. Real, looking for a fourth consecutive title, started well but it was a mixed week for English clubs.  In Switzerland, another too-criticised goalkeeper, David de Gea made his first save since mid-May to help Manchester United see off those Young Boys. The other half of the city failed to shrug off indifference and over-confidence on and off the pitch in a shock defeat to Lyon, whilst Spurs continued their slide from a great team to a terrible one in three games by losing to Inter in Milan.  But expect both to come good.

The top English result, and probably best game by a distance was at Anfield, where Liverpool, with a new goalkeeper, Brazil’s Alisson Becker, look like they could go one better than last time as they beat another contender, PSG, and their star-studded front three, with an injury time winner.

There was also massive interest, of course, at Juventus but CR7 blotted his copybook with red card for a spot of hair-pulling in Valencia. He might now be banned from a return to Old Trafford although he said if he is, he’s going up to his room and not coming out. The Old Lady (or Girlfriend of Italy; make your bloody minds up) still won and the usual suspects of Barcelona and Bayern started with comfortable wins too.

So, a wider field than ever of potential threats to Real’s crown. La Liga leaders, Barca, would appear to be one of them but their campaigns have derailed in Italy in recent seasons, including last season’s spectacular comeback by Roma, their 3-0 win overturning a 1-4 deficit in one of the best ties of the competition.

But, if some get their way, a victory on away goals could soon be a thing of the past.

Sounds Fishy?

There is a wonderful – in my opinion anyway – part in the cartoon strip about another goalkeeper, Billy The Fish, where his team, Fulchester United, are on their way to a game in Eastern Europe for a European Cup second-leg tie; when their aeroplane explodes over the sea and all the players and staff end up bobbing up and down in the water hoping to be rescued.

Their manager, Tommy Brown, is distraught that they won’t get the chance to overturn the first leg loss until trusty assistant, Syd Preston, reminds him that because of the ‘time difference’ they can still ‘just about make it’. When Brown shows signs of being less than convinced of this, Preston adds ‘but you’re forgetting that away goals count double’. After that, they relax and await the helicopters while the assistant finishes his bottle of duty free that he recovered from the floating wreckage.

I bring this up because there have been discussions to scrap the away goals rule altogether.

Although the need for two legs and away goals isn’t going to worry any of them until February, the coaches of Europe’s top clubs don’t like it any longer and think it actually dilutes attacking intent rather than encourage it, as it was originally designed to do.

OK, first some brief history. The ‘away goals rule’ was introduced in the now-defunct Cup-Winners-Cup in 1965. The ‘rule’ started as a trial – adopted in the European Cup first round two years later – to replace the need for third games or coin tosses (penalty shoot outs were still not on the radar at this time).

By 1970-71, it had been adopted for the whole competition. Travelling around Europe wasn’t as simple or cheap in those days and no-one wanted to get the Aeroflot flight to Tbilisi to be eliminated after two hours of football because they called heads instead of [fish?] tails. That was not the only reason though; in those days it was incredibly hard to win away in Europe and only 19% of teams did, so a way of getting visiting sides to go for goal rather than park the bus was seen as a major step forward. Thus, away goals that ‘counted double’ were born. This gave Fulchester United another (possibly unfair) boost in European ties as they already had conjoined twins in the team whose goals also counted double whenever either of them scored.

The rule has been around for 51 years and not really ever been under threat until now. But the boffins have discovered that the numbers don’t stack up like they used to. Fulchester (who boast Shakin’ Stevens and Mick Hucknall amongst their former players) had a midfielder, Professor Wolfgang Schnell BSc. PhD, who used to work out the best trajectory for his shot to travel before shooting, who could probably have helped them with this.

Amongst the statistical findings were:

>Away teams winning knockout legs has risen since 2001 to more than 28% from the aforementioned 19%

>The percentage of home teams keeping a clean sheet has fallen dramatically in European competitions (from close to 50% in the 80s to less than 35% since 2010 (in the 1977-1984 golden era when English clubs ruled the roost, a home win and a clean sheet away was incredibly common)

>The average number of goals by home teams has dropped from two goals per game to one and a half (although try telling Liverpool that)

The biggest criticism of the rule, backed up by that final stat, is that it encourages the home team in the first leg to ‘settle for a goalless draw’ on the basis that another [score] draw in the second leg would be enough to take them through.

Another is the unfairness that it gives to the away team in a second leg, who if the game goes to extra time, have 30 more minutes to score a double-counting away goal that would effectively leave their opponents with a mountain to climb and not much time to do it in. But surely that has to be balanced by the home team in the second leg getting an extra half hour at home, which their opponents could never have.

Removing the rule removes the precarious nature of a two-legged tie too. The current jeopardy is amazing, and I suspect this is what the top coaches want to avoid, as the cliff-hanging scenario of an away goal changing EVERYTHING hovers over a second leg match.

I’ve mentioned Roma’s 3-0 win to reverse the outcome against Barcelona last season. There are many more. Think Chelsea v Pep’s Barcelona semi-final in 2009 when after a 0-0 first leg in the Camp Nou, Chelsea held a one goal lead until the last seconds of injury time when an Iniesta long range shot was the difference between going through to the final and going out.

No extra time, no clinging on for penalty kicks. The rule allows one goal to swing a match completely the other way. Heart-breaking for Chelsea fans at the time, yes, but that is the beauty of the rule, it’s all or nothing – more like tennis and cricket; the chances of the match finishing level range between nil and extremely small.

Arsene Wenger, a school pal of Wolfgang Schnell BSc. PhD, always thought that away goals should only count double AFTER extra time, as they do in the two-legged semi-finals of the League Cup in England. For what it’s worth, I think they add to the unique excitement of European knockout matches; a special continental ingredient that you don’t see much in domestic competitions.

The Clubs, as ever, will probably get their own way though. ‘They think the rule should be reviewed and that’s what we will do’ admitted UEFA deputy secretary-general, Giorgio Marchetti, after the latest annual coaches gathering in Nyon, Switzerland. No word yet on whether Fulchester’s Tommy Brown was present.

I suspect not, but he, Syd, Billy and the rest of the Fulchester United team would be distraught at having this vital advantage ripped away from them.

But then again, they do also have Johnny X – the invisible striker; Brown Fox, a scantily clad native American on the wing and Rex Findlay, a blind, 64-year old forward who once scored 13 goals in one half with a jet-powered ball, to call upon, so Europe’s elite still can’t sleep soundly if they come up against them.

And you thought Neymar, Edison Cavani and Kylian Mbappe were a handful.