Who knows how much the “football of the pandemic” will have affected with the absence of spectators and necessarily neutral stadiums. Or if purely tactical considerations prevailed to facilitate more open and less blocked games. In any case, from the 2021/22 season the away goals rule will no longer be valid in all Uefa club competitions. A historic turning point taken by the Executive Committee of the Uefa which approved the proposal to remove the rule introduced to determine the winner of a double knockout challenge in the event of an overall tie between the first leg and the return match: in in this case the team with the most away goals goes through. With the decision to remove this rule in the event of a tie, the two teams will play two 15-minute overtime. If at the end of the two halves the two teams are still tied, penalty kicks will be needed to determine which team will go through.
A rule in force since 1965
«The away goals rule has been an intrinsic part of UEFA competitions since it was introduced in 1965. The question of its abolition has been debated in various UEFA matches in recent years. Although there was no unanimity of views, many coaches, fans and other football players questioned its fairness and expressed a preference for abolishing the rule, “said the president. Alexander Ceferin in the press release. “The impact of the rule now goes against its original purpose because, in fact, it dissuades the home teams, especially in the first leg, from attacking, for fear of conceding a goal that would give the opponents a crucial advantage – he added – . We also criticize the iniquity, especially in extra time, of forcing the home team when the away team scores ». According to the UEFA president, «it is correct to say that the home advantage is no longer as significant today as it once was. Taking into consideration consistency across Europe in terms of playing styles, and many different factors that reduced the home advantage, the UEFA Executive Committee made the correct decision by deciding that the view that an away goal is no longer appropriate. you weigh more than one scored at home ».
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What happens in the event of a tie
As the UEFA press release makes clear, in the event of a tie in goals in the two matches in a qualifying round, extra time and possibly penalties will be decisive. With the cancellation of the rule, away goals in head to head are also removed from the criteria used to determine the standings when two or more teams are tied for points in the group stage. However, they will not be removed from the additional criteria applied to all group matches if the teams remain tied, in order to maintain the highest number of sporting criteria.
The statistics
Since the mid-1970s, the trend has been a continuous reduction in the gap between the number of home and away wins (from 61% and 19% to 47% and 30%) and the average number of goals scored per game (from 2 , 02 and 0.95 to 1.58 to 1.15) in men’s tournaments, while since 2009/10 the average of goals in the women’s Champions has remained stable (1.92 for the home teams, 1.6 for those away ). Many different factors, stresses the Uefa statement, may have had an impact in this decline in the advantage of playing at home: the better quality of the fields and the standardization of measures, the improvement of stadium infrastructures, greater safety conditions, increase in care of referees (and more recently the introduction of Goal Line Technology and Var), a wider and more sophisticated television coverage of the matches, more comfortable travel conditions, a busy schedule that imposes turnover, and changes to the formats are all elements that they influenced the way of playing and reduced the distance between playing away and away.