Anomalies
If the two clubs contesting a two-legged fixture share the same stadium, each club may be the home club in one leg, and the rule may still apply. For example, the 2003 UEFA Champions League Semi-Finals drew Inter Milan and AC Milan together. Both legs were played at the San Siro, their shared stadium in Milan:
- First leg: AC Milan 0 – 0 Inter Milan
- Second leg: Inter Milan 1 – 1 AC Milan
With an aggregate of 1–1, AC Milan was declared the winner because they were the "away" side in the second game. In this example, as in many such cases, most tickets for each leg will be reserved for the "home" side's fans, so the designation was not totally arbitrary. Not all competitions with the away goals rule suffer from this anomaly, however: the Copa do Brasil has developed its rules to avoid some anomalies, such as the above. In that Cup, if two teams share either the same stadium or the same home town, neither is considered the home club and thus the Away Goals Rule does not apply. This exception was seen, for example, in the 2006 final between Flamengo and Vasco, when both legs were played at the Maracanã Stadium.
More anomalous was a qualification play-off for the 1991 World Youth Championship between Australia and Israel: Australia won on away goals even though, due to security concerns arising from the First Intifada, Israel's "home" leg was played in Australia. The same situation occurred in the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification tie between the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands, when the Bahamas advanced on the away goals rule even though both legs were played in the Bahamas.
There has been at least one case of a wrong application of the away goals rule by a referee in an international club tournament. It happened in a second round tie in the 1971–72 European Cup Winners' Cup between Rangers and Sporting Clube de Portugal. This fixture had the following scorelines:
- First leg: Rangers 3 – 2 Sporting
- Second leg, after 90 minutes: Sporting 3 – 2 Rangers
- Second leg, after extra time: Sporting 4 – 3 Rangers
Since the teams were now level 6–6 on aggregate, the Dutch referee Laurens van Raavens ordered a penalty shootout, which Sporting won 3–0. Rangers appealed the loss, however, on the grounds that Van Raavens should not have ordered the shootout, since the Rangers goal in extra time in Lisbon gave them a lead of three away goals to two. Rangers won the appeal and went on to win the Cup Winners' Cup that season.
CONCACAF has a different rule for its CONCACAF Champions League, employing away goals at the end of full time of the second leg, but not applying the rule at the end of extra time. For example, the semifinal of the 2008–09 CONCACAF Champions League between Cruz Azul and the Puerto Rico Islanders had the following scorelines:
- First leg: Puerto Rico Islanders 2 – 0 Cruz Azul
- Second leg, after 90 minutes: Cruz Azul 2 – 0 Puerto Rico Islanders
- Second leg, after extra time: Cruz Azul 3 – 1 Puerto Rico Islanders
Under UEFA rules, the Puerto Rico Islanders would have advanced. However, because CONCACAF does not apply the away goals rule a second time, the tie went to a shootout, which Cruz Azul won 4–2.
Read more about this topic: Away Goals Rule