Soccer Betting Strategy: The Home Field Advantage

Soccer Betting - How You Can Take Advantage of the Home Field Advantage
by Jason Green of Predictem.com

Probably more than any other sport, home field advantage is huge in soccer. You can find, especially in the bigger leagues, that teams can go through the whole season undefeated at home, but are well below .500 away from their home pitch. If you look at the current standings in many leagues you can find this to be true.

Unlike American football, baseball, and basketball, soccer teams usually do not travel thousands of miles when they hit the road and they do not have to cross several time zones to play one game. In the leagues in Europe the longest trip, except for competitions such as UEFA Cup and Champions League, the trip is generally never more than a couple of hours. OK, so because of this why is there such a difference between playing at home or a couple of hours away?

First of all, fans of soccer are unlike fans in any other sports, as they are the true sense of the word fans, as they are really fanatics. There is not other sport in the world that comes close to soccer in terms of how people live and die with their team. Not even NFL fans, even Raider fans, are more die hard than soccer fans. Hatred runs deep between team's supporters, as there is a reason why visiting soccer fans have their own section of the stadium and they are sealed to protect them from the hometown fans. I was a visiting fan in a Croatian league game and had a police escort to and from the game. In baseball or basketball home fans do not seek out visiting team fans to beat them up, but that happens all too often in soccer.

Considering that home team fans are so fanatic, teams that are at home have a huge advantage with the electricity in the stadium. When a home team is winning the fan support can make them hard to beat and when they are losing the crowd may be even louder, as they are spurning their team to come back. Home crowds are also very intimidating to teams that visit their beloved home pitch, as opposing players find it much harder to play on the road, which can lead to bad decision making on the pitch. Many teams, even elite ones, have a problem winning at certain away venues and they go into the game feeling they can't win there.

OK, so this is all well and good, but how can I profit from this? Most of the time, bookmakers factor in home field advantage when they post lines. However, the typical soccer bettor does not and this is especially the case when an elite team is playing on the road. There can be skewed lines and there can be good value with the home underdog. Teams that are horrid away from their home pitch, many times, have a decent record at home. Always look for home/away records before you bet on a soccer match and you can find good value bets, especially when a good team is playing a weak team in an away game. Elite teams often lose to much weaker teams in away games because if the immense home field advantage in soccer. Because of this you can find great odds on home teams.

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