It didn’t take long for the away goals apologists to rouse themselves. One defensive performance from Real Madrid at Paris Saint-Germain was all it took for them to bemoan the abolition of a law that has manipulated football since it was trialed in the Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1965–66 and predict the coming of an apocalypse of negativity, the descent of football into attrition, time-wasting and spoiling.
In the four games since the change of regulation, though, away teams have scored eight of the 10 goals thus far in the knockout stage of the Champions League (Manchester City’s five did the heavy lifting).