Actually beginning this season they won't matter in the knockout rounds, either.
I think it was the right call to scrap that one. It's main impact was to keep home teams from attacking with full vigor.
It's still doing it.
Atletico 0-0 Porto
Kiev 0-0 Benfica
Lille 0-0 Wolfsburg
Bruges 1-1 PSG
Seville 1-1 Salzburg
Chelsea 0-1 St. Petersburg
Inter 0-1 Real
You can get rid of away goals, but you can't force teams like Atletico to attack with vigour. It used to add spice to the head to head aggregate in the group stage such as that night v Olympiakos or to a lesser extent, that night v Napoli. But with it gone, it gives even more incentive for bus parkers to sit in for the full 90 minutes, home and away.
As for this game, the line up was all over the shop. No VVD, no Hendo, no Thiago, Origi, Gomez, a new centre back partnership, what's going on?? It seemed like the Norwich game was a week early. When the penalty was missed, it looked like a turning point and sure enough by half time, the game had turned. But we know we can come back against them and Hendo and Salah came to the rescue. If we collect the 6 points from the Porto games, we should have qualified before we go to Milan on the last night of the group. In the meantime they can always, go back to Italy.
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