Stadium or state of mind? Psychologist on home advantagepublished at 15:28 GMT 16 November
Nicola Pearson
BBC Sport journalist
Image source, Getty Images"Home advantage gives you an advantage."
It is a quote - among many - attributed to the famous former England manager Sir Bobby Robson - a simple, yet fair reflection of a historical format of football.
For as long as teams have played in leagues, games taking place home and away has been the norm, with the idea that playing at home will be to the benefit of that team.
But what is the impact of playing at your own ground in front of your own fans?
In the first part of her chat with BBC Sport, performance psychologist Marie Cartwright explained: "Home impact can be viewed in two ways. Sometimes it does have a positive impact, and what happens is there is an elevated motivation.
"What that means is the crowd energy increases adrenaline and that creates a momentum in effort and intensity in the players. It is also a familiar environment for the players, so that means it reduces the cognitive load. They don't have to think as much about anything else other than their play because they know the pitch, they know the routines, they feel settled.
"However, there are a couple of potential negative impacts as well, with the potential intensification in pressure in the home fans, most times, expecting dominance from the home team. That can lead to mistakes from players feeling bigger to them.
"There can then be what we call a threat state. The players might perceive consequences as high, so they feel they might be facing more criticism when they are at home."
While those who watch football know there are more factors than just where the match is being to take into consideration, the statistics do suggest the influence is there.
Since the Premier League started, the home win percentage has outweighed the away win percentage in all bar one season - the Covid-hit 2020-21 campaign in which fans were largely not allowed admission saw a 38% home win rate compared to 40% away win rate.
So how a team handles this additional crowd pressure seems to be a key factor.
"In psychology, there is something called the challenge and threat theory," Cartwright said.
"In reality what that means is a 'challenge state' can push the player into thinking, 'I've got this, I've got the resources to cope with this'. That leads to better decision making and quicker reactions.
"The threat state, on the other hand, players might think the consequences outweigh their ability to cope. In any match context, that can mean they have a narrow sense of focus, the focus is not quite the same, so the play becomes slower because of overthinking."
"It can also be called 'red brain or blue brain' - with red brain being the one with fear-based dialogue and internal negative self-talk, while blue brain is the cool, calm and collected one that can handle its emotions.
"What sits in the middle of these is distraction. How a player responds to distraction and filters out the noise, like the crowd, can impact which of these mindsets they move into and ultimately how the team performs."
Read more from Marie in part two of her chat about why teams some teams play better away from home and how it impacts managers - that will be on this page early next week.
