The quarter-finals of the 2023/2024 edition of the Champions League will have been rich in emotions and especially in goals. 32 times the nets will have shaken in the space of 8 matches with an average of 4 goals per match.
The fault lies with a certain away goal rule published in 1965 by UEFA: goals scored away count double. In 2021, UEFA abolished it, justifying that this rule dissuaded home teams from attacking “because they fear conceding a goal which would give their opponents a crucial advantage”. At a time when a 0-0 became perfectly admissible at home in C1, UEFA precisely hoped, by withdrawing its credo, to disinhibit the attacks of the receiving teams and intensify the spectacle. And these quarter-finals perhaps showed a certain efficiency of this decision. 18 goals in the first leg, 14 in the return, the scores flew on the scoreboards, and the defenses lost time and again. A statistic which legitimately allows us to ask the question: has the reform of the away goal really changed the situation?