The away goals rule is a method of breaking ties in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. By the away goals rule, the team that has scored more goals "away from home" will win if scores are otherwise equal. This is sometimes expressed by saying that away goals (or at least one of them) "count double" in the event of equal scores.[1]
The away-goals rule is most often invoked in two-legged fixtures, where the initial result is determined by the aggregate score — i.e. the scores of both games are added together. In many competitions, the away goals rule is the first tie-breaker for such cases, with a penalty shootout as the second tie-breaker if each team has scored the same number of away goals. Rules vary as to whether the away goals rule applies at the end of normal time of the second leg, after extra time, or both. It was first introduced by UEFA, in 1965.
The away goals rule is intended to encourage the away team to be more aggressive. In football, at least, it often leads to a nervous first leg; the home team is unwilling to commit large numbers of players in attack lest they concede a goal, whilst the away team attempts to defend and snatch an away goal to aid them in the second leg. Such tactics arguably make the second leg more exciting, after a low-scoring first leg leaves both sides with a chance to win. There is some debate over whether the away goals rule creates an unfair advantage in playing away first, followed by at home — with the other team squandering their home advantage in the first leg due to away goal fears — and this may be a factor in its somewhat patchy adoption for competitions. Anecdotal evidence certainly suggests that most teams feel an away goal puts them in the driving seat.[2]
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The away goals rule is applied in many football competitions that involve two-legged fixtures, including the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, CAF Champions League, CAF Confederation Cup and any two-legged playoffs used in qualification for the FIFA World Cup or European Championships.
Not all competitions use the away goals rule. For example, before 2005, CONMEBOL used neither the away goals rule nor extra time in any of its competitions, such as the Copa Libertadores. Series that were level on aggregate went to an immediate penalty shootout. The away goals rule (without extra time) was introduced to the Copa Libertadores in 2005. In Latin America, an example of a tournament that always has used this rule is Copa do Brasil (Brazilian Cup).
In English football, two-legged fixtures in the League Cup are only subject to the away goals rule after extra time; if teams are level on aggregate after 90 minutes of the second leg, extra time is played regardless of whether one team leads on away goals.
The semi-finals of the promotion playoffs in the Football League, despite being two-legged, ceased to employ the away goals rule from 2000. As away goals scored in extra time counted double, the side finishing lower in the league gained an advantage by playing away in the second leg, thus giving them 30 more minutes to score an away goal. The rescinding of the away goals rule has affected the results of several play-off semi-finals.
The away goals rule is sometimes used in round robin competitions (that is, leagues or qualifying groups), where it may be used to break ties involving more than two teams. For example, away goals are the third tiebreaker in the group stage of both the UEFA Champions League[3] and UEFA Cup.[4] In Group C of the UEFA Champions League 2000–01, Olympique Lyonnais took the second qualifying spot ahead of Olympiacos on away goals.[5] Because other tiebreakers take precedence, the away goals rule is rarely invoked in such tournaments. In many group tournaments, the away goals rule is never applicable; for example, in World Cup qualification.[6]
The away goals rule was first applied in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup when Budapest Honvéd beat Dukla Prague in the second round in 1965–66. It was introduced in the Fairs Cup in 1966–67,[7] and in the European Cup in 1967–68 for the first round,[8] 1968–69 for the second round,[9] and 1970–71 for later rounds.[10] Previously, ties level on aggregate had gone to a playoff on neutral ground.[11]
If the two clubs contesting a two-legged fixture share the same stadium, each club may be the home club in one leg, and the rule may still apply. For example, the 2003 UEFA Champions League Semi-Finals drew Inter Milan and AC Milan. Both legs were played at the San Siro, their shared stadium in Milan:
With an aggregate of 1–1, AC Milan was declared the winner because they were the "away" side in the second game. In this example, as in many such cases, most tickets to each leg will be reserved for the "home" side's fans, so the designation is not simply arbitrary. Not all competitions bearing the away goals rule suffer from this anomaly, however: the Copa do Brasil has built its rules seeking to evade some anomalies, one of which being the aforementioned. In the Cup, if two teams share either the same stadium or the same hometown, neither is considered the home club and thus the Away Goals Rule does not apply to either one of the two specific legs involving those teams. This exception was seen, for example, in the 2006 final between Flamengo and Vasco, when both hosted their legs in Maracanã Stadium and, therefore, the rule wouldn't be applied.
More anomalous was a qualification play-off for the 1991 World Youth Championship between Australia and Israel: Australia won on away goals even though, due to security concerns arising from the First Intifada, Israel's "home" leg was played in Australia.[12] The same situation occurred for the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification tie between the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands, where the Bahamas advanced on the away goals rule even though both legs were played in the Bahamas.[13]
There has been at least one case of a wrong application of the away goals rule by a referee in an international club tournament. It happened during the second-round tie in the 1971–72 European Cup Winners' Cup between Rangers and Sporting Clube de Portugal. This fixture had the following scorelines:
Since the teams were now level 6–6 on aggregate, the referee ordered a penalty shootout, which Sporting won 3–0. Rangers appealed the loss, however, on the grounds that the referee should not have ordered the shootout, since the Rangers goal in extra time in Lisbon gave them a lead of three away goals to two. Rangers won the appeal and went on to win the Cup Winners' Cup that season.
CONCACAF has a different rule for its CONCACAF Champions League, employing away goals at the end of full time of the second leg, but not applying the rule at the end of extra time. For example, the semifinal of the 2008–09 CONCACAF Champions League between Cruz Azul and the Puerto Rico Islanders had the following scorelines:
Under UEFA rules, the Puerto Rico Islanders would have advanced. However, because CONCACAF does not apply the away goals rule a second time, the tie went to a shootout, which Cruz Azul won 4–2.
Below is a summary of the variations of rules used in different competitions. In all examples (except Primera División de México play-offs where the higher seed, which has the better regular season record, wins the tie if the aggregate score is level), a penalty shootout is used to determine the winner if all criteria used remain tied.
| Away goals rule applied after regulation? | Extra time played? | Away goals rule applied after extra time? | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | Yes | UEFA Champions League and Europa League |
| Yes | Yes | No | CONCACAF Champions League |
| Yes | No | N/A | Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana (except finals) |
| No | Yes | Yes | Football League Cup semi-finals |
| No | Yes | No | Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana finals; Football League promotion play-off semi-finals |
| No | No | N/A | Primera División de México play-offs |