Researchers have taken advantage of the lack of audience during the pandemic and have found that teams get better numbers when playing at home
Corinthians fans celebrate the team’s goal against Sao Paulo at the New Coimica ArenaOne of the characteristics of football is that teams perform better in home matches. hard to beat flamingo in the Maracana Corinthians At the Neo Chemistry Arena, Q Santos In a villa and many other examples. With fans, players will find additional energy to search for results, and willpower will weigh more than working on the opponent’s court. And from here rally He is considered the twelfth player. It’s something that studies of the dynamics of sport have long taken into account. But it is difficult to measure. What fan clubs would accept playing in their empty stadium, risking a tournament in the name of experience? The pandemicIt did, however, give researchers the opportunity to see just how important full terraces really are.
A recent study conducted by the University of Leeds, in United kingdom, searched the results of 4844 matches played in the 11 most important European championships. The list includes not only the main items, such as Premier League, from England, trophies SpanishAnd German NS Italian, as competitions tend to receive less attention, such as the national championships of Russia and Turkey. As in Brazil, the presence of fans in European stadiums was banned at the start of the pandemic due to the risk of contamination. But even before the vaccination, the German championship had already resumed attendance at matches. the last EurocopIn Portugal, he had an audience at all matches. Even the arrival of the delta variable did not change the version.
This allowed the researchers to compare the behavior of teams in matches with or without their fans in the stadium. The results show that the file fans Positively affects almost all stats. In every home game, for example, teams scored 0.39 more goal points than playing away. In every five matches, there were two more points on the table. Without fans, the advantage dropped to 0.22 points. In the same five matches, they only got one point. They also scored an extra goal in every four home matches compared to away matches. Without fans, they had to play seven times at home to reach the same goal. The absence of the audience also affects the referees, who have scheduled more fouls in empty stadiums. They also give fewer yellow cards, even if the team is blatantly wrong. And they are expelled even less.
The study filters out other statistics from football, where the number of corner kicks and shots on goal shows that without the presence of the crowd, the team’s performance is worse. This highlights an important psychological element in football: the bond between fans and players. In Scream, some miracles have already happened. Impossible turns and victories against a stronger opponent…there is no shortage of examples. With the stands empty, objective factors such as the quality of the team have a greater impact, reducing the advantage of playing at home.
