An Examination of the Homefield Advantage in a Professional English Soccer Team from a Psychological Standpoint

The aim of this investigation was to examine the underlying mechanisms of the homefield advantage within professional English football (soccer). Study 1 examined soccer players’ retrospective perceptions of the homefield advantage. Results to this first study revealed that the players had significantly higher retrospective perceptions of their confidence, t(4) = 2.24, p<0.05, and their positiveness towards the forthcoming game, t(4) = 2.89, p <0.05. when playing at home. Study 2 investigated players’ psychological and mood states immediately prior to competing at home and away using a shortened Profile of Mood States (POMS) within a semi-structured interview. Quantitative and qualitative measures were used to analyse the data from these interviews. Although no significant differences were found between the players’ actual mood states prior to playing at home and away, data did show the players to have significantly higher perceptions of the team’s confidence at home games, t(4) = 2.82, p<0.05. Qualitative analysis highlighted the following themes as major factors contributing to their strong belief in a homefield advantage: physical and mental preparation, sleep, crowd factors and referee bias. ‘Home advantage is the term used to describe the consistent finding that home teams in sport competitions win over 50% of the games played under a balanced home and away schedule’ (Courneya & Carron, 1992: 13). Within sport there is considerable homogeneity in the reported magnitude of homefield advantage (Rosenthal & Rubin, 1982). The extent of this advantage, however, varies between sports. Examples of this variation between sports range from 53.5 per cent (baseball), to 57.3 per cent (American soccer), 61.1 per cent (ice hockey), 64.4 per cent (basketball), to 64.5 per cent in soccer, a larger factor than elsewhere (Courneya & Carron, 1992). In soccer the home advantage is one of the longest established and most deep-rooted aspects of the sport’s lore, yet remains the least understood (Pollard, 1986). It has been seen as an important factor in determining the outcome of a game, and research has highlighted that game location, home or away, is as good a predictor of outcome as team quality (Schwartz & Barsky, 1977; Snyder & Purdy, 1985) or scoring first (Courneya, 1990). It would appear that the question of whether the home advantage exists in sport has been clearly answered by the research. The more relevant and interesting, and as yet unanswered, question is why? Research attempting to identify the factors that contribute to the home advantage (cf. Agnew & Carron, 1994; Courneya &