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Europe's top club coaches have asked Uefa to review the use of the away-goals rule in continental competitions.

They also want the transfer window to end at the same time in all the continent's major leagues.

"The coaches think that scoring goals away is not as difficult as it was in the past," said Uefa deputy general secretary Giorgio Marchetti after the meeting in Switzerland.

"They think the rule should be reviewed and that's what we will do."

The annual gathering included Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho and Arsenal boss Unai Emery, plus Emery's predecessor Arsene Wenger, along with Juventus' Massimiliano Allegri, Real Madrid's Julen Lopetegui, Carlo Ancelotti of Napoli and Paris St-Germain's Thomas Tuchel.

The rule was first introduced in the former European Cup Winners' Cup competition in 1965 as an alternative to tossing a coin or staging a replay on a neutral ground at a time when travelling abroad was far more challenging.

Marchetti said the coaches felt the rule was also counter-productive and that, as much as encouraging away teams to attack, it induced home teams to defend to avoid conceding a costly goal.

On the transfer window, he said the coaches wanted more countries to follow the example of England and Italy and close them before the start of the season.

In Spain, Germany and France, they continued until the end of August as before.

"The coaches are of an opinion that there should be a unified window and the window should close before the competition starts," said Marchetti. "The idea would be to try and bring them into line."

Quote (zarkadon @ 5 Sep 2018 13:33)

The problem is that if we got rid of it, we would see a lot more ties going into ET, and that's something we generally want to avoid in non-neutral grounds.

I'd prefer Simeone's suggestion of removing the away goals in ET, so no team gets an extra 30 minutes of time where their goals are worth more, while still keeping the amount of games going into ET low due to the away goals rule being applied for 180 minutes. But then again that would still put the home team in an unfair advantage during ET, so it's not a simple dilemma.

Quote (ampoo @ Sep 5 2018 06:55pm)

it says top coaches, why is mourinho there? :unsure:

lets get rid of it, on the highest level the difference between playing at home or playing away isnt that big

it has become annoying to see teams needing 2 goals just because the opponent scored 1