February 10th 2025
As the Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League head into the knockout stages this week, it seems a good time to reflect on the impact that the abolishment of the away goals rule has had on European football.
The away goals rule had been a staple of European football, being an active rule from 1965 until its abolishment in 2021. This is the fourth season since UEFA abolished the rule, with UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin cited at the time saying,
“The impact of the rule now runs counter to its original purpose as, in fact, it now dissuades home teams – especially in first legs – from attacking, because they fear conceding a goal that would give their opponents a crucial advantage“.
There was a lot of discussion at the time, with many people agreeing that the rule needed to be scrapped in the interest of fairness, as one team going out while scoring the same number of goals as the other over 180 minutes, seemed unjust. On the other hand, others argued that having no away goal rule could lead to away teams sitting back more and that any games going to extra-time, would heavily favour the home team, as they would have an extra 30 minutes on home soil.
Both arguments have quite a bit of merit to them, but now that 3 full seasons of European football have passed without the away goals rule, there is a decent sample size to look at and compare the data before and after the rule came into affect. We’ll start by looking to see if the rule change had the intended affect that Čeferin wanted. But first, a note on the data that I have used for this article.
(First leg: Bayern Munich 2 – 3 PSG, Second leg: PSG 0 – 1 Bayern Munich).
Skip to different sections
1) The Data
2) Do home teams attack more in first legs now?
3) Are games more exciting after the rule change?
4) How frequently are ties now going to extra-time/penalties?
5) Which teams have directly benefitted from the rule change?
6) Do home teams have an unfair advantage during extra-time?
7) Conclusion
1) The Data
The data used in the article below comes from Fbref.com, who have match data for European competitions from 1990 to 2024. This includes 2 seasons of European Cup (1990-1992), 33 seasons of Champions League (1992-2024), 20 seasons of UEFA Cup (1990-2009), and 15 seasons of Europa League (2010-2024), and 3 seasons of Europa Conference League (2021-2024).
Only games that had two legs are included (excluding qualifiers). This is so that we only look at games where the away goal rule was relevant.
2) Do home teams attack more in first legs now?
According to Čeferin, home teams were being dissuaded from attacking during first legs under the away goals rule. Whether or not this was true at the time or not is up for discussion, but what we can do is compare goals that home teams scored during first legs before and after the rule change.
Let’s first take a look at home and away goals scored during first legs before and after the rule change.
As is a common theme throughout this article, when comparing before and after the rule change, the sample size of games played differs greatly. However, looking at the average home and away goals is quite interesting.
Contrary to how Čeferin expected the rule change to go, home teams are actually scoring fewer goals in first legs, with a slight drop from 1.50 to 1.46. However, it could be explained that the sharp increase in away goals (from 1.05 to 1.25) in first legs is due to home teams attacking more and not fearing conceding a catastrophic away goal, thus leaving themselves more vulnerable at the back.
It seems that the rule change has helped away teams more than home teams in first legs, so it doesn’t appear as though Čeferin’s intentions are being realised, although it should be acknowledged that goals scored is not always a perfect metric to show teams’ intention to attack. Some teams play very attack-minded football, but simply don’t have the attacking players to finish chances.
3) Are games more exciting after the rule change?
In the section above, we solely looked at the impact the away goal rule change had on first legs, now let’s look more generally across both legs.
It’s interesting to see that both the total number of goals and the number of away goals per game has increased since the rule change. The increase in the number of away goals per game (from 1.04 to 1.25) in particular is quite substantial, roughly a 20% increase. Clearly, home teams are struggling to stop away teams from scoring. As mentioned in the previous section, this could be explained directly by the rule change, with home teams willing to risk playing more open with away goals not being as much of a detriment as previously.
If this explanation of home teams risking more going forward is true, it does not seem to be benefitting home teams very much, with the average number of home goals dropping from 1.62 before the rule change, to 1.54 after, about a 5% drop.
Using our relatively small sample size of 346 games, it could be argued that the abolishment of the away goals rule has led to more exciting ties. Of course more goals does not always equal more excitement, but more total goals, more away goals, less home dominance, what’s not to like? Well actually, there might be an issue with the fact that the number of extra-time games is increasing, in an already hectic schedule for players…
4) How frequently are ties now going to extra-time/penalties?
With the away goals rule being abolished, the number of games going to extra-time and penalties has increased. From a mathematical perspective, this makes perfect sense. There are more combinations available for a tie to be level after two legs. Before the rule change, the two legs needed to finish with the exact opposite scorelines, or two draws of the exact same scoreline, to go to extra-time. Now, there are just far more possibilities. The increase in the percentage of ties that now go to extra-time and/or penalties can be seen in the graphic below.
The percentage of knockout ties now going to extra-time has increased dramatically. From the graphic we can see that before the rule change, only 8% of all ties went to extra-time, and now that number has more than doubled, to 18%. This means that almost 1 in every 5 knockout ties are now playing an extra 30 minutes.
Since 2024/25, the Champions League and Europa League formats now have two extra group/league phase games, and also have an extra two-legged playoff for the teams that finish 9th to 24th in the league phase. The top level teams are already playing a ridiculous amount of minutes and do not need an extra 30 after a gruelling 180 over two legs. It doesn’t seem as if the away goals rule is coming back any time soon, so a simple solution to this could be to just scrap extra-time altogether and go straight to penalties, although this could potentially lead to more defensive football. The removal of extra-time could very well be coming soon, with UEFA seriously considering scrapping it.
5) Which teams have directly benefitted from the rule change?
Quite a strong argument for the removing the away goals rule was in the interest of ‘fairness’. For some, it seemed that it was a lot fairer to apply the exact same weight/importance to every goal, and not grant a special exception if the goal was scored away from a team’s home ground.
The most notorious example of this was in the 2003 Champions League semi-final between AC Milan and Inter Milan. Both games were played at the San Siro and both ended in draws, 0-0 and then 1-1. However, since AC Milan were designated the ‘away’ team in the second leg, they went through on away goals, despite the San Siro being both of the teams’ home stadium.
Now that the rule has been removed, it is possible to score more away goals than your opponents and still go out. Since the rule change, there have been 12 occasions where a team that would have gone through on away goals was then knocked out in extra-time or penalties. You can see all the ties where this occurred in the table below.
| Competition | Season | Round | 2nd leg home team | 2nd leg away team | 1st leg score | 2nd leg score (after 90 mins) | Final result | Result if away goal rule was in place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Champions League | 2023/24 | Quarter-finals | Manchester City | Real Madrid | 3-3 | 1-1 | Real won on penalties | Man City win on away goals |
| Champions League | 2023/24 | Round of 16 | Atletico Madrid | Inter Milan | Inter won 1-0 | Atletico won 2-1 | Atletico won on penalties | Inter win on away goals |
| Europa League | 2023/24 | Knockout playoff (Round of 32) | Freiburg | Lens | 0-0 | 2-2 | Freiburg won 3-2 in extra-time | Lens win on away goals |
| Europa League | 2022/23 | Quarter-finals | Roma | Feyenoord | Feyenoord won 1-0 | Roma won 2-1 | Roma won 4-1 in extra-time | Feyenoord win on away goals |
| Europa League | 2022/23 | Round of 16 | Arsenal | Sporting CP | 2-2 | 1-1 | Sporting CP won on penalties | Arsenal win on away goals |
| Europa League | 2022/23 | Knockout playoff (Round of 32) | Rennes | Shakhtar Donetsk | Shakhtar won 2-1 | Rennes won 1-0 | Shakhtar won on penalties | Rennes win on away goals |
| Europa League | 2021/22 | Quarter-finals | Rangers | SC Braga | Braga won 1-0 | Rangers won 2-1 | Rangers won 3-1 in extra-time | Braga win on away goals |
| Europa Conference League | 2023/24 | Quarter-finals | Fenerbahçe | Olympiacos | Olympiacos won 3-2 | Fenerbahçe won 1-0 | Olympiacos won on penalties | Fenerbahçe win on away goals |
| Europa Conference League | 2023/24 | Knockout playoff (Round of 32) | Bodø/Glimt | Ajax | 2-2 | 1-1 | Ajax won 2-1 in extra-time | Bodø/Glimt win on away goals |
| Europa Conference League | 2022/23 | Quarter-finals | Nice | FC Basel | 2-2 | 1-1 | Basel won 2-1 in extra-time | Nice win on away goals |
| Europa Conference League | 2022/23 | Knockout Playoff (Round of 32) | RSC Anderlecht | Ludogorets Razgrad | Ludogorets won 1-0 | Anderlecht won 2-1 | Anderlecht won on penalties | Ludogorets win on away goals |
| Europa Conference League | 2021/22 | Knockout playoff (Round of 32) | PAOK FC | FC Midtjylland | Midtjylland won 1-0 | PAOK won 2-1 | PAOK won on penalties | Midtjylland win on away goals |
So the two Madrid teams, Freiburg, Roma, Sporting CP, Shakhtar, Rangers, Olympiacos, Ajax, Basel, Anderlecht, and PAOK have all directly benefitted from the rule change. Real Madrid in particular benefitted greatly, seeing as they went on the win the Champions League in 2024. Roma and Rangers both also went on the get to the final. It should also be mentioned that there have been four other ties where a team would have won on away goals, but went on to win the tie anyway.
It can be argued, of course, that if these teams were in danger of going out due to the away goals rule, they would be attacking more looking to find another goal, and the entire dynamic of the ties would be different. It’s still interesting to see that there are very fine lines when it comes to going out of the tournament and then actually going on to win it.
6) Do home teams have an unfair advantage during extra-time?
The final section of this blog post explores whether home teams are getting an unfair advantage having an extra 30 minutes to score at home in extra-time and being able to take penalties at home. An often cited argument against the removal of the away goals rule was that, if a tie went to extra-time, the home team got home advantage for 30 minutes and the away team got nothing. The away goals rule was often seen as an equaliser in this regard, as the advantage of playing at home was evened out by the away teams’ goals carrying extra weight. Exploring this argument, let’s look at all the ties that have gone to extra-time before and after the rule change, and see if the number of home wins in extra-time has increased.
Looking at the above graphic, there were 161 games that went to extra-time across all European competitions before the rule change, and 32 after. The black shaded bars indicate all the ties that went to penalties, the orange represents the times that the home team won before penalties, and the blue shaded bars are for when the away team went through before penalties. Breaking this down into percentages, we get the following graphic.
It’s interesting to see that the number of ties that home and away teams won during extra-time (before penalties) was very even before the rule change, with home teams going through 33% of the time, and away teams going through 29% of the time.
Since the rule change however, there is a much larger discrepency between the two numbers. Now, only 16% of all ties that go to extra-time are being won by the away team before penalties. This discrepency can almost entirely be explained by away teams not being able to win via away goals in extra-time. This happened on 15 occasions before the rule change.
It’s also interesting to see that over half of all ties (53%) that are going to extra-time are now going to penalties, compared to 37% before the rule change. Again, this brings about the question, does anyone want extra-time? The players and managers surely don’t want to play an extra 30 minutes at a busy period during the year, and half of the games are going to penalties anyway.
As another side note, of the 77 ties that went to penalties, 42 (55%) have been won by the home team. This seems to indicate a slight advantage for the home team hosting the penalty shootout at their ground.
7) Conclusion
The abolishment of the away goals rule has had both positive and negative affects on European football. On the one hand, the total goals per game is on the rise, largely due to the sharp increase in away goals per game. The dominance of home teams seems to be on the decline and this can be attributed to teams not being so scared to concede a fatal away goal.
On the other hand, ties are going to extra-time much more frequently. This is quite a significant issue as top level teams are playing more and more games per season already, and with the introduction of the new FIFA Club World Cup, this problem is only worsening. On top of this, the games that do go to extra-time, show a clear advantage for home teams, where they have an extra 30 minutes on home soil to find another goal. UEFA seem to be addressing this issue by considering scrapping extra-time. It should however be said, that the increase in the number of games per season is a much larger issue than extra-time for player welfare. This was addressed excellently in a recent article by Guardian writer Jonathan Wilson.
With the away goals rule being scrapped, ties are being finished in a much ‘fairer’ way, but there is definitely an argument that the away goals rule added an extra level of jeopardy that made ties more exciting. One late goal could swing an entire tie. A team being on the brink of elimination could instantly be going through to the next round with just one goal.