Stinkypete
Full Member
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2022
- Messages
- 258
I kind of agree with both you and @Isotope . We cant ignore the home advantage thing but honestly, the performance being affected by screaming fans is something hard to digest. These are professional footballers to begin with.
I think it has more to do with familiar surroundings for the home team, the pitch staff setting up the conditions. Its important to also notice the pitch dimensions which I believe can be adjusted to some degree by the home team. I might be wrong but i remember reading that somewhere.
Many years ago I remember an interview with Thierry Henry. This was when Arsenal moved from Highbury to the Emirates and Thierry Henry was not as prolific as in previous seasons. The interviewer asked him why, and Henry described something along the lines of looking around him for specific points of interest (I think in this example he used the corner of the stadium) to figure out where he was positioned, how to turn, when to shoot etc the unfamiliarity of the new stadium meant his form suffered.
I imagine at home you know where when how to weight passes, accurately how far from other players and goal you are at any given time at this level. You would lose some of that away from home for sure. The more experienced heads should definetly be better at stuff like this than others, but I imagine it is a factor wether substantial or not.