The article below explains the home field advantage (HFA) a team has and how to calculate it for greater benefit and even better than the bookmakers.
Since 1888, every football season has shown the evident fact that teams perform better when they play at home, than on a neutral pitch or away. Throughout one season, home teams have scored more goals than away teams.
However, soccer teams are highly unbalanced and not all of them have manage to earn the same home-field advantages than other and therefore it is very difficult to come up with one general home-field-advantage handicap.
What bettors should always take into account is to know which data is relevant. Namely, would it be relevant to take Chelsea’s and Manchester City’s home field advantage which has increased significantly after their purchase by rich owners? Does Arsenal’s form of pre-2005 be taken into account even if it plays at another stadium?
Calculating home field advantage
Home field advantage may be calculated by the following equation:
HFA = (HF – HA) / 19
where:
HF is the number of goals scored at home per season
HA is the number of goals conceded at home
In the end (19) divide by the number of home games played in a season.
How to use home field advantage with Asian Handicaps?
When the home handicap is less than the home field advantage for one team, it might make a sensible bet. However, this is just one factor to consider when making a balanced betting strategy.
What influences on home field advantage?
Certain factors influence on the home field advantage and they are as follows:
– Home crowds
– Stadium Familiarity
– Style of Soccer
– The Referee
Home crowds influence the home field advantage a lot. For example, before 2013/13 season, Liverpool majorly underperformed for a club of their size. They finished at the 7th, 6th, 8th and 7th place. The Reds had a better HFA than Tottenham in all but one season despite finishing below them in the league. Does this imply that how Liverpool performs at home is affected by home field advantages more than others?
Before Arsenal moved to the Emirates Stadium for the 2006 season, they had great success in 1997/98 when they won five Premier League seasons, before the end of 2005. In the course of this period, their average home field advantage was 1.51. But, after moving to the Emirates Stadium, their average home field advantage dropped to 1.23.
However, gradually over time, they showed signs of progress which only signifies that they were getting accustomed to the new pitch and started feeling at home at the Emirates Stadium.
Another important factor is the style of soccer one team adopts. In 2013/14 Liverpool’s HFA increased from 0.89 in 2012/13 to 1.84. In this period they had the same manager and relatively similar team.
However, manager Brendan Rodgers adopted a more attacking strategy and this increased the goalscorring opportunities. This resulted in almost a goal per game increase in HFA.
The last, but the most influencing factor for the HFA in soccer, according to Scorecasting written by Moskowitz and Wertheim, is the referee. Their findings show that home teams always receive small preferential treatment by the referees.
Although this preferential treatment is given unconsciously, the referees are always emotionally affected by the home crowd and sometimes make subconscious decisions in favour of the home team.
Moreover, according to the Harvard Research Assistant, Ryan Boyko, after studying 5,000 Premier League games from 1992 to 2006, concluded that for every 10,000 home team fans, home team advantage increased by 0.1 goals.
His study further showed that referees, especially inexperienced ones, often give penalties to home team players. Therefore, it is very important to include the referee profiling in the overall soccer betting strategy.
