Home Advantage in Sport

Causes and the Effect on Performance

Miguel A. Gómez-Ruano, Richard Pollard, Carlos Lago-Peñas, Miguel A. Gómez-Ruano, Richard Pollard, Carlos Lago-Peñas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000462067
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Sports Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This is the first book exploring the concept of home advantage (HA), the well-known beneficial effect that players and teams derive from performing at home in all sports throughout the world. Despite the fact that the existence of HA dates back to the origins of organized sport in the late 19th century, its root causes and how they operate and interact with each other are still unclear and remain the topic of intense research involving many disciplines, all with the potential objective of improving team and individual performance.

This book covers a broad review of HA divided into three different sections: (i) Section 1 focuses on the theory of HA in sport (the concept of this phenomenon, its quantification, and factors supposedly associated with the HA are explored; (ii) Section 2 analyses the effects of HA in sports related to bothmale and female athletes, in relation to tactics and strategies, fans, referees, travel, situational variables and the home disadvantage; and (iii) Section 3 studies the HA as it applies to specific sports worldwide such as outdoor sports (football, rugby, cricket, and Australian Football), indoor sports (basketball, futsal, handball, water polo and volleyball), US professional sports, individual sports, racket sports, combat sports, minor sports, disabled sports and the Olympic Games.

This book has been written in cooperation with top leading experts in this field worldwide. The book offers a better understanding of the HA effect for MSc and PhD students, athletes, coaches, performance analysts, sport psychologists, sociologists, sport scientists and sport journalists.

SECTION III

Home Advantage Applied to Specific Sports

17

HOME ADVANTAGE IN SOCCER

Carlos Lago-Peñas

DOI: 10.4324/9781003081456-20

Summary

The first paper to consider the concept of home advantage (HA) applied exclusively to soccer was by Dowie in which he commented on the success of countries hosting the World Cup. Today there is sufficient evidence to conclude that the effects of game location should be included when assessing the performance both of teams and of individual players. Undoubtedly, the accumulated information generated in the last four decades has contributed to a substantial increase in specific knowledge about how playing at home or away influences the match outcome. This has led researchers to offer advice to coaches, referees, media, international sporting organisations, and players about different topics of interest, such as a detailed understanding of how the crowd affects referee decisions, differences between home and away teams in technical and tactical behaviours or why teams reduce their HA when they move to a new stadium.

This chapter aims to answer six questions related to the advantage of playing at home in elite soccer.

Are Goals Just Before Half-Time Worth More? Are There Psychological Goals in Soccer?

One of most well-established soccer myths is that a goal scored just before half-time has a bigger impact on the game than a goal scored at any other time. A goal just before half-time by the home team can make the difference between being sent to the dressing rooms with either supportive applause or a pressuring boo.

Two studies provided initial, though incomplete, empirical evidence. Ayton and Braennberg (2008) analysed whether the final outcome of all 355 English Premier League games between 1992 and 1995, which were poised at 1-0 at half-time, depended on when the first goal was scored. Heuer and Rubner (2012) examined the effect of the timing of previous goals on the goal rate in games from the German Bundesliga between 1968 and 2011. Neither study found an association between the time of the goal in the first half and later game outcomes. More recently, Baert and Amez (2018) examined 1,179 games played in the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League between 2008 and 2014, and their results did not support the myth either. In contrast, conditional on the goal difference and other game events and characteristics at half-time, the final goal difference to the advantage of the home team turned out to be 0.520 goals lower in the case of a goal being scored just before half-time by this team. Table 17.1 estimates the final game outcome depending on whether the home team score a goal between the start of minute 45 and half-time (YES or NO), whether the home team received a red card during the first half (YES or NO) and the half-time result.

Three potential explanations for the non-positive effect of scoring just before half-time on full-time achievement were offered by Baert and Amez (2018): (1) a home team that scores a goal just before half-time may (unconsciously) relax a bit and go into the break with a feeling of having accomplished something; (2) scoring just before half-time may backfire on the mental status of the home team and thereby affect subsequent performance negatively; (3) and the emotion of a goal just before half-time may change the plan and lead to important changes in the way many teams play, with home teams probably playing more defensively in the second half compared with the first half.

Consequently, coaches should control the effect of scoring or conceding a goal in the further development of the match and work with the players in these two situations. When the goal is conceded, it is about helping footballers to control their frustration when things do not work out as planned. They must be able to stick to the plan devised for the match or modify it and adjust it to the new scenario without losing confidence in what they are doing. If they score first, they will then have to insist on keeping the same performance that has led them to this partial success during the match. Psychological goals do not exist in soccer, there are no goals that affect more than others; it depends on how players react to the changes in the scoreboard.

TABLE 17.1 Estimated final game outcome depending on whether the home team score a goal between start of minute 45 and half-time (YES or NO), whether the home team received a red card during the first half (YES or NO) and the half-time result

Half-time result	Goal home team between start of minute 45 and half time	Red card in the first half for home team	Home team final result
0−0	YES	YES	Lost
1−0	NO	NO	Won
1−0	YES	NO	Won
1−0	YES	YES	Won
2−0	NO	NO	Won
2−0	YES	NO	Won
2−0	YES	YES	Lost
1−1	NO	NO	Draw
1−1	YES	NO	Lost
1−1	YES	YES	Lost
1−2	NO	NO	Lost
1−2	YES	NO	Lost
1−2	YES	YES	Lost

Note: The presented results are based on the regression model estimates provided by Baert and Amez (2018).

Is There a Second Leg Home Advantage Effect in a Two-Stage Knock-Out Competition?

The most important soccer tournaments (i.e. Champions League, UEFA Europa League) include ties where two clubs play each other over two matches and the aggregate score determines which team goes on to the next stage of the competition. It is commonly accepted by coaches, players, and fans that playing at home in the second leg of a two-stage knock-out competition is an extra advantage. The second-leg home advantage effect occurs when, on average, home teams are more likely to win a two-stage knock-out competition when they play at home in the second leg. That is, “both teams have a home advantage, but this advantage is significantly greater for the team that plays at home second” (Page & Page, 2007, p. 1549).

Eight studies have examined this perceived extra advantage. Those results show mixed results. On the one hand, Page and Page (2007), Pic and Castellano (2017), Flores et al. (2015), Lidor et al. (2011), and Del Corral et al. (2015) found that teams that host the return game proceed more often to the next stage. By contrast, the studies of Eugster et al. (2011), Mueller-Langer and Andreoli-Verbasch (2016) and Amez et al. (2020) did not find support for the second-leg home advantage. In addition, Page and Page (2007) suggest that the second-leg home advantage has declined over time. These inconclusive findings may be due to the fact that very different variables have been included in the statistical models provided by the authors and that with the exception of Flores’s study (2005), none of the previous ones have considered the first-leg result as an independent variable.

According to the results provided by Flores et al. (2015), Figure 17.1 summarise the probabilities for home-first progression corresponding to each possible first-leg score-line for the two cases of a contest between two average teams and a contest where a weak club is home first to a strong club. A number of possible explanations for the existence of the second-leg home advantage in two-leg knock-out competitions have been suggested (Page & Page, 2007): (1) referee bias,...