Home advantage
Home advantage is the extra performance a team gets from playing at its own ground: the crowd, no travel, familiarity with the pitch. In the major leagues, the home side wins around 45% of matches, against barely 30% for the visitors.
Home advantage is one of the best-documented effects in football. Several causes add up: the crowd, which lifts the team and may also nudge some refereeing decisions; no travel and less fatigue; familiarity with the pitch, its size and its surroundings. The behind-closed-doors seasons of 2020-21 proved it the other way round: without fans, the advantage shrank noticeably in several leagues.
Its size isn't uniform. It varies by league and by stadium (altitude, climate, long trips across Africa or South America), and it has tended to decline over the decades. It almost vanishes at a neutral venue, such as a final or some matches in the final stage of an international tournament.
For a prediction, you should neither ignore nor overrate it. A strong team playing away often remains the favourite against a weak home side: home advantage adjusts the probabilities, it rarely flips them on its own. It is also why an away draw is often seen as a good result.
Example
Two evenly matched teams each producing 1.3 expected goals: at a neutral venue, a Poisson model gives roughly 37% / 26% / 37%. Multiply the home side’s expected goals by 1.12 (1.46) and divide the visitors’ by 1.12 (1.16), and it becomes roughly 44% / 26% / 30%.
How Elofoot uses it
Elofoot's Poisson model applies a home-advantage coefficient of 1.12: the home side's expected goals are multiplied by 1.12 and the visitors' divided by 1.12, after accounting for each team's xG, form, league position and division strength.
Frequently asked questions
- Does home advantage still exist?
- Yes, although it has shrunk over the decades. In the major leagues, home sides still win clearly more often than visiting sides.
- Why did it drop during behind-closed-doors matches?
- Because part of the effect comes from the crowd. Without fans in 2020-21, the gap between home and away wins narrowed markedly in several leagues.
- Does it apply at a neutral venue?
- Hardly. For a final or a tournament match played in a third country it is largely removed, unless one team is effectively playing in front of its own fans.
See also
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