Home "Advantage"

kinaldo

I've always been fascinated as to why pretty much every team in the history of football statistically performs much better at home. Dr Henry Stott and Dr Ian Graham examined why...

Diagnosis throws up a simple cure for travel sickness
Daniel Finkelstein

I’m not exactly sifting through piles of job offers, but I know what would be the first thing I’d do if I became a Premiership manager. Apart from politely declining a post-match drink with Sir Alex Ferguson, of course. I would try to reduce home advantage when my team played away.

There are basically three things that decide the outcome of football matches — the class of your side, a little luck and home advantage. It’s difficult to do much about the class of your side without money or time, and preferably both. You can’t control your luck. Which leaves home advantage.

The impact of home advantage on a Premiership match is huge. Adjusting for the quality of the opposition, for every goal that a team score at an away ground they score 1.46 at home. This is on the high side internationally (the figure is 1.39 in Spain, for instance, and the overall basic average is 1.32).

This is, if you think about it, surprising. The impact of class is easy to understand, but why exactly is there home advantage? Why, in a competitive division, haven’t clubs found a way to reduce it.

Dr Henry Stott and Dr Ian Graham have been looking at home advantage and trying to discover its source.

Home teams shoot more, get more shots on target and score more goals. But the figures are (forgive the pun) striking. The improvement shown by a side when at home in getting a particular shot on target is minuscule. So is the improvement in the percentage of shots on target that results in a goal. But the number of shots is massively greater at home than away — a full 27 per cent more.

The away side are also penalised more, with more cards and more penalties. It is not clear (we’ll be working on this) whether this is just the result of away teams defending more or whether there is referee bias.

The next thing the statisticians did was to break down home games into different categories. Our aim was to test certain popular theories about home advantage.

Does it, for instance, vary from one competition to another? A little, it seems. The Champions League, for example, has an average home advantage of 1.44, the FA Cup 1.35 (meaning that 1.35 goals would be scored at home by a team that would score one goal in an away game against such opponents).

We then looked at stadiums to judge the role of the crowd. Stadium capacity makes no impact really and, rather more surprisingly, neither does the size of the crowd. What does matter (a bit) is fullness — the attendance divided by the capacity. A full stadium increases your home advantage by 0.07 of a goal (per away goal you would have scored against that team).

We also looked at the distance travelled. Visiting teams a long way from home is hard, it seems. If the visiting side come from more than 200 kilometres away, add 0.04 to the advantage. But if it’s a derby game that takes a chunk out of the advantage — a full 0.08.

So you can see that a number of the most commonly touted causes of home advantage do matter, but not as much as you may think. From the work we have done it seems that home advantage resides in sides defending more when they are away.

But if they know this, why do they do it? I don’t understand.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7973-2482333,00.html

eirebhoy

Haven't got time to read that article but I've no doubt it's down to tactics these days.

redspider

The statistics are of course correct, playing at home is an advantage, and one that everyone exploits. However, the reason for the advantage is very human. And its surprising that an article like this didnt remark on it.

When a player plays in the same ground 50% of the time, a ground which is near where he lives, etc, and where there is vocal support at that ground for the player and the team, the player and the team and the fans feel very much attached to it. And of course much more than the other grounds that they visit only once. Humans and homes - ever since we went back to the same cave twice we have had an attachment with a place we call home. And we are gregarious, so we like familiarity and seeing the same people in the same places, with the same colours, and feeling that support, etc.

Human psychology plays a very important role in sport. If a player is confident, it brings success, and vice versa. Teams and players will up their performance in an attempt to win a home match. This is 'ther turf', etc, and it is the time to put on a display. If you are ever going to try 110%, its at home.

Managers adopt tactics to fit around this home and away feeling. Even rules have been adopted, with away goals counting 'double'. This affects the tactics even more, something which they didnt count in their analysis. The away team can defend more and hit on the break, the home team has the onus to attack.

I for one, think that major competitions perhaps such as the World Cup should not have a home team. It is obvious to the blind man that home teams have an advantage, and clearly if the world cup in 1954 was held in Hungary they probably would have won it at a dawdle, as would Holland perhaps in 1974, etc.

Neutral tournaments would level the playing field. Its one reason perhaps why in cup finals for example they tend to be more open as they are played on neutral territory. Perhaps there should be such a thing as a 'neutral cup' - although probably most fans and all clubs would be against that.

Football, its a funny old game, eh !

Redspider

kinaldo

Great post Redspider, I think you may have hit the nail on the head there.