American newspaper The New York Times had yesterday an interesting analysis of he home-field advantage in European football.
Unshakable Home-Field Advantage in Soccer World
Daniel Altman - New York Times
It is a busy time in the soccer world. The top teams in Europe and South America are playing multiple tournaments, Major League Soccer is heading for the playoffs, and hundreds of players are participating in qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup. With their squads stretched thin, clubs are looking for any kind of edge. The biggest edge of all could be playing at home — but why?
The home-field advantage is more entrenched in soccer than in perhaps any other sport. To lose at home is viewed as an unacceptable result by fans; inferior teams must be beaten, and good teams must at least be tied. According to the statistics, those expectations are more realistic than one might think.
In the last seven seasons of the English Premier League, the average goal difference a game among teams playing at home was a positive number, 0.39. Those extra goals translated into more points in the standings, too. With 3 points for a win and 1 for a tie, teams garnered an average of 0.57 points more a game at home than on the road.
The home-field advantage is uniform across Europe’s top leagues. In La Liga in Spain, the edge was 0.37 goals and 0.58 points over the past seven years. In Serie A in Italy, it was 0.40 goals and 0.61 points.
Inside the individual leagues, however, there are some stark differences. Of the teams that played all seven seasons in the Premier League, four had by far the biggest home-field advantages: Fulham, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Everton. For each of those teams, playing at home was worth almost an entire extra goal, and 0.71 to 0.85 additional points.
It may not be too surprising that the top teams, like Manchester United and Chelsea, do not appear in this list. If a team wins all the time, on the road or at home, it has no home-field advantage. But Barcelona, the second-winningest club in Spain, holds one of the widest margins in La Liga — 0.70 additional points — at its legendary Camp Nou.
Indeed, some stadiums can create an intimidating atmosphere. Newcastle is known for its loyal supporters, thousands of whom wear their short-sleeved, black-and-white jerseys to matches even in the biting cold of the northern English winter. And perhaps most feared are fans of the Turkish team Galatasaray, with their tradition of hanging banners that read Welcome to Hell for the benefit of visitors to Ali Sami Yen Stadium.
You don’t need a big, intimidating stadium to have a big home advantage, however. Fulham’s Craven Cottage, in stylish southwest London, seats just 26,000 people — and the team spent two of the last seven seasons playing at Queens Park Rangers’ smaller Loftus Road ground while the Cottage was being expanded. Villarreal’s El Madrigal stadium, which at 0.74 points harbors the biggest home advantage in La Liga, has just 25,000 seats — more than half the population of the town of Villarreal. Compare that with 52,387 seats in Newcastle or 98,772 in Barcelona.
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