The away goals rule made no sense, it defied logic and forced teams to play cautiously at home - obviously the fans who came to watch their team attack suffered from this. There was only one mistake in the away goals rule: its introduction.
As for the Swiss system, it is such garbage that hardly anyone will look at it. Just like no one watches the three rounds of qualifying before the group tournament. Now you don’t have to watch games in the group “officially” but just wait for the playoff stage.
The worst part about it was that if the first game ended 1-0, the second leg was all about strategy because it meant that this one successful counter attack would essentially turn the game into a 3-0 lead for the team that won the first game at home without conceding a goal. I think the change of the rules was the right thing to do here. I am not always happy with what the UEFA is doing, but this was a good one and definitely contributes to a higher quality experience for the fans and the players.
If a team loses the first game 2-0, almost all hope was lost as conceding a single goal in the second game meant that they had to score at least 4 goals. Now it is still very possible to turn a game around, which makes it much more fun to watch for the fans and also for the players to actually play that second game.
I remember the times when Atletico won the first leg 1-0, what a horror it was to watch the second leg because everyone knew what to expect from Atletico during that second leg.
In fact, any score turned the return game into a nightmare. You have already described 1-0. Now let's say the visitors won 2-1, in which case all they could do was play the bus in the return leg and hope they didn't lose by 2 goals, a 1-0 defeat was completely acceptable. It was a real mockery of football and fans.
And yes, it’s completely absurd when the overall score is, for example, 3-3, but one of the teams goes further “just because.” It's hard for me to praise UEFA here since they just corrected their own mistake, but it's good that it happened.
I hope the same thing will happen with the Swiss system, in my opinion it looks unviable.
I honestly felt differently about a 1-0 back at the time because most of the teams that played in the Champions League knew that they would probably score one goal in the second leg, at least when we reached the round of 16 most of the teams had the quality to score. It destroyed a lot in my opinion. Or let's say it this way, of course when the home team in the second leg scored first then the game was equalized, but the away team still had the chance for the knockout with just a single goal. What's the excitement if the away team scores the 1-1 in the 84th minute? Everyone knew that it was essentially over. This is fundamentally different today, which is good. Even if a team takes the lead in the second leg by one goal, it doesn't matter what minute of the game it is, there is still a chance to counter that goal for the team that fell behind.
What's the deal with the Swiss system? Lol, I feel like a newbie, should I know that?