IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp9980.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

No Better Moment to Score a Goal than Just Before Half Time? A Soccer Myth Statistically Tested

Author

Listed:
  • Baert, Stijn

    (Ghent University)

  • Amez, Simon

    (Ghent University)

Abstract

We test the soccer myth suggesting that a particularly good moment to score a goal is just before half time. To this end, rich data on 1,179 games played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League are analysed. In contrast to the myth, we find that, conditional on the goal difference and other game characteristics at half time, the final goal difference at the advantage of the home team is 0.520 goals lower in case of a goal just before half time by this team. We show that this finding relates to this team's lower probability of scoring a goal during the second half.

Suggested Citation

  • Baert, Stijn & Amez, Simon, 2016. "No Better Moment to Score a Goal than Just Before Half Time? A Soccer Myth Statistically Tested," IZA Discussion Papers 9980, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9980
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp9980.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oberhofer, Harald & Philippovich, Tassilo & Winner, Hannes, 2010. "Distance matters in away games: Evidence from the German football league," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 200-211, April.
    2. Sutter, Matthias & Kocher, Martin G., 2004. "Favoritism of agents - The case of referees' home bias," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 461-469, August.
    3. Dawson, Peter & Dobson, Stephen, 2010. "The influence of social pressure and nationality on individual decisions: Evidence from the behaviour of referees," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 181-191, April.
    4. Andreas Heuer & Oliver Rubner, 2012. "How Does the Past of a Soccer Match Influence Its Future? Concepts and Statistical Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-7, November.
    5. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2008. "Do professionals choke under pressure?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 636-653, March.
    6. Pettersson-Lidbom, Per & Priks, Mikael, 2010. "Behavior under social pressure: Empty Italian stadiums and referee bias," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 212-214, August.
    7. Hlasny, V. & Kolaric, S., 2015. "Catch Me If You Can - Referee–Team Relationships and Disciplinary Cautions in Football," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 74994, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    8. William Greene, 2004. "The behaviour of the maximum likelihood estimator of limited dependent variable models in the presence of fixed effects," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 7(1), pages 98-119, June.
    9. Vincenzo Scoppa, 2008. "Are subjective evaluations biased by social factors or connections? An econometric analysis of soccer referee decisions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 123-140, August.
    10. Ray Bachan & Barry Reilly & Robert Witt, 2014. "Team performance and race: evidence from the English and French national soccer teams," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(13), pages 1535-1546, May.
    11. Daniel Link & Steffen Lang & Philipp Seidenschwarz, 2016. "Real Time Quantification of Dangerousity in Football Using Spatiotemporal Tracking Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-16, December.
    12. A-L. Balduck & A. Prinzie & M. Buelens, 2008. "The effectiveness of coach turnover and the effect on home team advantage, team quality and team ranking," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 08/535, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    13. Mechtel, Mario & Brändle, Tobias & Stribeck, Agnes & Vetter, Karin, 2010. "Red Cards: Not Such Bad News For Penalized Guest Teams," MPRA Paper 21430, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Jonah Berger & Devin Pope, 2011. "Can Losing Lead to Winning?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 817-827, May.
    15. Babatunde Buraimo & David Forrest & Robert Simmons, 2010. "The 12th man?: refereeing bias in English and German soccer," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(2), pages 431-449, April.
    16. Page, Katie & Page, Lionel, 2010. "Alone against the crowd: Individual differences in referees' ability to cope under pressure," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 192-199, April.
    17. Barry Reilly & Robert Witt, 2013. "Red cards, referee home bias and social pressure: evidence from English Premiership Soccer," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(7), pages 710-714, May.
    18. Benno Torgler, 2004. "The Economics of the FIFA Football Worldcup," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(2), pages 287-300, May.
    19. Bas ter Weel, 2011. "Does Manager Turnover Improve Firm Performance? Evidence from Dutch Soccer, 1986-2004," CPB Discussion Paper 166, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    20. R. H. Koning, 2003. "An econometric evaluation of the effect of firing a coach on team performance," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 555-564.
    21. Lawrence M. Kahn, 2000. "The Sports Business as a Labor Market Laboratory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 75-94, Summer.
    22. Thomas J. Dohmen, 2008. "The Influence Of Social Forces: Evidence From The Behavior Of Football Referees," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(3), pages 411-424, July.
    23. Tim R. L. Fry & Guillaume Galanos & Alberto Posso, 2014. "Let's Get Messi? Top-Scorer Productivity in the European Champions League," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(3), pages 261-279, July.
    24. Bas Weel, 2011. "Does Manager Turnover Improve Firm Performance? Evidence from Dutch Soccer, 1986–2004," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 279-303, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Albanese & Stijn Baert & Olivier Verstraeten, 2020. "Twelve eyes see more than eight. Referee bias and the introduction of additional assistant referees in soccer," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-15, February.
    2. van Damme, Nils & Baert, Stijn, 2019. "Home advantage in European international soccer: Which dimension of distance matters?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-17.
    3. Philippe Meier & Maximilian Rüdisser & Raphael Flepp & Egon Franck, 2019. "The advantage of scoring just before the halftime break – pure myth? Quasi-experimental evidence from European football," Working Papers 382, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    4. Henrich R Greve & Jo Nesbø & Nils Rudi & Marat Salikhov, 2020. "Are goals scored just before halftime worth more? An old soccer wisdom statistically tested," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-11, October.
    5. Gomez, Miguel-Angel & Reus, Marc & Parmar, Nimai & Travassos, Bruno, 2020. "Exploring elite soccer teams’ performances during different match-status periods of close matches’ comebacks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    6. De Meyere, Arne & Vanruymbeke, Ward & Baert, Stijn, 2018. "Player Dismissal and Full Time Results in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League," IZA Discussion Papers 11722, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Philippe Meier & Raphael Flepp & Maximilian Ruedisser & Egon Franck, 2020. "The Advantage of Scoring Just Before the Half-Time Break—Pure Myth? Quasi-Experimental Evidence From European Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(5), pages 548-565, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    2. Andrea Albanese & Stijn Baert & Olivier Verstraeten, 2020. "Twelve eyes see more than eight. Referee bias and the introduction of additional assistant referees in soccer," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-15, February.
    3. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2021. "Social pressure in the stadiums: Do agents change behavior without crowd support?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Eliminating supportive crowds reduces referee bias," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-25, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    5. J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Echoes: what happens when football is played behind closed doors?," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-14, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    6. Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo & Francisco González-Gómez & Jorge Guardiola, 2011. "The importance of time in referee home bias due to social pressure. Evidence from Spanish football," FEG Working Paper Series 03/11, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).
    7. David Boto-Garcìa & Alessandro Bucciol & Luca Zarri, 2020. "Managerial Beliefs and Firm Performance: Field Evidence from Professional Elite Soccer," Working Papers 19/2020, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    8. Hlasny, V. & Kolaric, S., 2015. "Catch Me If You Can - Referee–Team Relationships and Disciplinary Cautions in Football," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 74994, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    9. De Meyere, Arne & Vanruymbeke, Ward & Baert, Stijn, 2018. "Player Dismissal and Full Time Results in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League," IZA Discussion Papers 11722, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Andrés Picazo-Tadeo & Francisco Gónzalez-Gómez & Jorge Guardiola Wanden-Berghe, 2011. "Referee home bias due to social pressure. Evidence from Spanish football," Working Papers 1119, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    11. Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2018. "Does the Home Advantage Depend on Crowd Support? Evidence From Same-Stadium Derbies," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(4), pages 562-582, May.
    12. Vladimir Hlasny & Sascha Kolaric, 2017. "Catch Me If You Can," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(6), pages 560-591, August.
    13. Katherine G. Yewell & Steven B. Caudill & Franklin G. Mixon, Jr., 2014. "Referee Bias and Stoppage Time in Major League Soccer: A Partially Adaptive Approach," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-19, February.
    14. Peter Dawson, 2014. "Refereeing and infringement of the rules," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 24, pages 401-418, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Ulrike Holder & Thomas Ehrmann & Arne König, 2022. "Monitoring experts: insights from the introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) in elite football," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(2), pages 285-308, February.
    16. Barry Reilly, 2014. "Labour market discrimination," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 15, pages 238-258, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Carlos Alberto Belchior, 2020. "Fans and Match Results: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Brazil," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(7), pages 663-687, October.
    18. Dawson, Peter & Dobson, Stephen, 2010. "The influence of social pressure and nationality on individual decisions: Evidence from the behaviour of referees," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 181-191, April.
    19. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2020. "Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Soccer? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 8549, CESifo.
    20. Lackner, Mario & Sonnabend, Hendrik, 2021. "Coping with advantageous inequity—Field evidence from professional penalty kicking," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    goal scoring; sports; soccer; fixed effects regression models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • Z00 - Other Special Topics - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9980. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.