ABSTRACT
The effect of home field advantage has been proven to exist in many sports, including in top-level football, although it is of lesser importance. Teams that play in their own stadium and in front of their fans win more often than visiting teams, on average; they gain more points and score more goals. Despite its prominence, the cause of the effect is not clearly proven. The attempts to explain it, on the other hand, are manifold. Possible factors include, on the one hand, a familiar environment as well as many cheering fans. On the other hand, the referee can also be a potential cause, as s/he may be unconsciously influenced by the atmosphere and thereby unintentionally give advantages to the home team. Positional data open up many new possibilities to model tactical aspects of the game, find patterns, and create novel, advanced performance measures. This chapter investigates whether the home field advantage effect is also measurable with the key performance indicators (KPIs) introduced in previous chapters.
