Home Advantage in European Futsal Leagues

resumen

Javier Álvarez Medina, Javier Ramírez San José, Román Nuviala Nuviala, Víctor Murillo Lorente

The situational-enviromental variables and the effect of playing at home the “home field advantage” can influence the final scoreboard because it is considered to affect the psychological mindset of the players. The aim is to study those enviromental-situational variables establishing if any relationship between them and the final score exists.

Quantitative study, descriptive, comparative of the best European pro futsal leagues: Spanish, Italian and Russian, during season 2014-2015. Sample rises to 41 teams, 626 matches y 4716 goals.

Playing as local team increases 17.73% of the chances of winning a game, with a 51.27% higher probability than as a visitor. Significant differences have been found between playing as local or visitor in the Russian and Italian league. Scoring the first goal as a local gives a 66.9% more chances of winning a game. 17,3% more than doing it as a visitor. This provides significant differences between Spanish and Russian leagues. When the local team reaches halftime with a scoreboard advantage 76.73% of the matches end up in a win; 7.67% more than as a visitor and if partial scoreboard is not losing chances of winning a local rise to 88.36%, 9.06% more than as visitor teams.