Fairfax still don't understand the away goals rule

Fairfax still don't understand the away goals rule

No wonder our journos don't like to report on footy .. . .  they're not smart enough..

In fairness, this is a common misconstruction, largely because of the language used. Even in footballing countries it's relatively common to see a reference to 'away goals counting double', which is, of course, a load of nonsense.
The away goals rule is really quite simple, and I don't understand why it creates such confusion. It is a simple tie-breaker: if the scores are tied after 180 minutes of football, the team that scored more goals away from home advances. If both teams scored (or did not score) the same amount of goals away from home, then the tie goes to extra time.
It's really simple. I don't see why people in the media who should be informed better can't get it right.

I don't really think its cos media are stupid, its more they can't really explain how it works, if you just say away goals are more important or are weighted more than home goals it doesn't sound important, but if you want to hype up the importance saying they are worth double makes more of an impact. All it really succeeds in creating is confusion.

I recently explained the away goals rule to a workmate of mine who had heard about the Bahrain game and how the second leg was going to be difficult because we hadn't scored an away goal. When I'd finished he asked, "So who do New zealand play in the second leg".DOH!!!!!