You could do 2/3 if there was seeding, but IIRC the elimination rounds are determined by random draw. I personally would like to see MLS do with this since they play a ridiculously long season, let half the teams in the playoffs, yet teams can be eliminated in one game.
The closest I saw was NASL back in the day would do home and away, if they were tied 1 game each, there would be a short “mini game” then a shootout to determine the winner, or something like that. The oddities of the NASL playoff system created this drama in 1979:
By other sports you mean US pro sport apart from NFL?
That works because the known home ground advantage in the play-offs is accepted as being due reward for the team finishing higher on the table at the end of the regular season.
That doesn’t apply with these interleague/international competitions like UEFA because the teams (generally) don’t play each other outside of UEFA.
I love the away goal rule, and certainly prefer it to PKs… everybody understands the rule, and as some have said earlier in the thread, it really leads to some tension in matches.
There are some situations where I do like extra time as a resolution, eg WC semis, but given how many matches many of the players play - league play, cup play, other cup play sometimes, and international play - extra time in one match can put clubs at some disadvantage.
I think you’re missing the point - the away goal rule makes for incredibly exciting games, as others have pointed out. It forces away teams to go on the attack, and a home team can never feel comfortable, even if they are 2 or 3 goals ahead. It can turn a game around in the final seconds. It’s edge of the seat stuff.
That is the actual rule - away goals only affect the outcome when the aggregate score is level. What you write about “points” is inaccurate. If the 2 games finish 3-1 and 1-2, with aggregate score is 4-3 and away goals don’t come into the outcome (though they make a massive difference to tactics while the games are actually being played).
If you read a list of scores or a summary of the game it probably did say something like “Porto win on away goals”, or the list of results included the words “2nd leg”, which indicates you need to check what the first game’s score was. While the game is being played you’re generally expected to know the format of the competition and what the current situation is. I’ve been to hundreds of professional football matches where there wasn’t a scoreboard in the stadium.
This is a format which has nuances understood and enjoyed by millions of people for 50 years, so it’s quite bold to deem it “silly” and “overblown” when you’ve only just found out about it. There are lots of reasons for using an aggregate score rather than counting the number of games one, for not having a 3rd game, etc. They did have something like what you’re talking about when international club tournaments were getting going in the 1950s but practical experience quickly showed that aggregate scores were best. That did lead to a few years of issues with some games having to be decided by a toss of a coin, which is why they brought in the away goals rule in the late 60s.
I agree that what happens in extra time in the 2nd leg is the one weakness of the away goal system. The English League Cup had a particularly complicated solution to it in the semi-finals for a while, possibly still does.
But one good thing about it is that as soon as an exact reverse of the first leg score becomes impossible then you know it can’t go to extra time or penalties. Eg if the first leg finishes 1-1, then extra time becomes impossible as soon as either team scores 2 goals in the 2nd leg. You can only have extra time if the 2 results are the same but opposite, eg each home team wins 2-1, or each game is 0-0.
The away goals rule creates a situation that you don’t otherwise get in football, in that you can go in an instant from losing to winning. The best game I ever attended was the 2nd leg of the U21s European championship quarter final between Scotland and Germany in 1992. The 1st leg in Germany was 1-1. For the 2nd leg in Aberdeen there was a cash gate, 22,000 people got in with thousands locked out. Germany went 3-1 up on the night so Scotland had to score 3 or they would go out. Scotland did get 2, so the aggregate score was 4-4 with Germany winning on away goals. Alex Rae then scored the best goal I’ve ever seen, a diagonal long range shot into the far top corner and we were suddenly winning. It was absolutely orgasmic. The noise was unbelievable. Scotland held on and several of the German players collapsed in tears at the end.
NB there was no scoreboard and the PA was inaudible after every goal, but 99% of those present knew what was happening with the scores.
My preferred solution for goals scored in Extra Time would be to give the win to whoever scored the last equaliser, (Extra Time only), keeping the game on a knife edge. 0-0 in Extra Time would be penalties…
Among other things, to cut down on the sheer amount of travel and logistics involved. 2 games is better than 3 in that regard. The travel can be insane in some continental qualifiers, such as when Japan has to fly to Jordan to play Jordan in Jordan and then vice versa.
The crazy thing about that game was that Juve, who have had the stingiest defense in Serie A for ages (and particularly at home), gave up 2 goals in Extra Time in Turin with Porto down to 10 men.
Juve has won 9 consecutive Serie A titles, although it looks like that streak will end this season. Their failures have occurred at the European Cup (Champion’s League) and so they brought in Cristiano Ronaldo, the best to ever have played the sport, to finally achieve European glory. And then this happened.
I just wanted to point this out, as the game itself was so unique that I felt it should be mentioned.
Ah, thank you. Totally misremembered. Okay, Porto were down to 10 men with over 35 minutes left to play in Normal Time. Jive could only muster 1 goal the rest of the way, so the game went to Extra Time. Juve must have been 10-1 favorites against a tired 10-man Porto team at home. That’s what was crazy about the game.
Of course that doesn’t sound so great after my alternate ending.
That solves nothing. Any individual game can finish with the teams level so
how can you have a “best of three” when a draw is an ever-present possibility?
You still have to provide a method for breaking that tie
Given that this whole thread was based on a misconception, and that you’re not interested in honest explanations of that misconception, I’m not sure what this thread is for. Closed.
