Pranav Nair
UEFA amends away goals rule that could affect Manchester United
According to Manchester Evening News, Manchester United will go into the 2021/22 campaign in the knowledge that UEFA has amended the away goals rule for European competitions.
The governing body has announced that the away goal rule will be removed from all club competitions under their banner from the upcoming campaign. Instead, games tied on aggregate will be decided in extra time and eventually if need be, penalties.
Extra time will be split into two halves of 15 minutes each. If anything that aspect remains the same as it was before. This amendment is a marked shift from the competition as we know it.
The away goals rule was introduced in 1965, following a European Cup quarter-final between Liverpool and Cologne that was settled by flipping a coin. It has been a part of UEFA competitions since. This will be the first season in generations where fans will tune in for double legged ties that will be held without the away goals rule.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin revealed the decision was not unanimous. He went on to indicate that the change was made after its ‘fairness’ was questioned. While that assessment is debatable depending on who you ask, it will be something new for a lot of fans to wrap their heads around.
A buzzkill?
It is fair to say that the removal of the rule to a large extent kills the tension that accompanies close-fought contests. Moreover, it can be argued that it also makes things uneven especially when there’s a disparity in the quality of both teams.
The away goal rule gave teams the chance to ‘steal a result’ against bigger opponents. Such David vs Goliath battles will now shift more in favour of the latter. It does however open new possibilities to big games as neither team will be keen to adoptive a conservative approach in the away leg.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out and how teams react to the new normal.
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The rule helped us overcome Paris Saint-Germain in 2019 in the round of 16 of the Champions League. The win in Paris was one of the finest results we have experienced under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
We have also had our share of heartbreaks and been on the receiving end. Few will forget the 4-4 aggregate draw against Bayern Munich in the Champions League in 2010. Arjen Robben’s strike saw us bow out on away goals, preventing Sir Alex Ferguson from leading us to a third straight final.
