Footballers can play almost alone on the field, due to its pandemic coronavirusHowever, a new German study shows that the home advantage continues to weigh on the outcome of the game. On the other hand, the bias of the referees in favor of the “seat” is significantly reduced due to the absence of spectators.
Researchers from the Universities of Cologne and Paderborn, who published in the journal PLoS One, compared – with the help of statistical analysis – more than 1,000 matches without spectators due to coronavirus and 35,000 matches with spectators before the pandemic.
It was found – to the surprise of scientists, as they reported – that it was insignificant to reduce the home advantage in the outcome of the games, when there were no spectators, compared to the previous season with the full stadiums. So, as AMPE notes, they came to the conclusion – thanks to this “natural experiment” of the pandemic – that in the final analysis the basic parameter for the advantage of a team playing at home, it is not the presence of the world who supports it.
For decades, researchers have been analyzing home advantage in different sports, identifying a number of factors that may play a role, but how exactly each one affects them is unclear. The new study, which used the unusual pandemic situation to assess the role of fans, found that if anyone can be influenced more by the “hot” seat, this is the referee. The away teams are more likely to be “loaded” with fouls, yellow and red cards when the podium shouts, while in the empty stadiums in the middle of a pandemic this bias almost disappeared.
Also, the teams that play at home, but without spectators, make fewer shots and especially less successful shots that “translate” into goals.
According to the researchers, “our analysis of almost 40,000 football matches shows that empty stadiums during the pandemic Covid-19 ehad a significant impact on the referees’ decisions and the game itself. Unexpectedly, the teams that play at home, continue to perform clearly better than the visitors even though there are no spectators, which means that the advantage of the seat is not primarily due to the presence of spectators».
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