This article uses several econometric models to evaluate the determinants of the outcomes of the World Cup Qualifying matches played in South America. It documents the relative importance of home-field advantage and other factors. Contrary to popular belief, altitude appears not to be an important factor behind the outcome or score of a match.
Buraimo, B., Forrest, D., & Simmons, R. ( 2007). The Twelfth Man?Refereeing bias in English and German Soccer, Working Paper07-07, International Association of Sports Economists.
2.
Carron, A., Loughhead, T., & Bray, S. ( 2005). The home advantage in sport competitions: Courneya and Carron’s (1992) conceptual framework a decade later. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23, 395-407.
3.
Dyte, D., & Clarke, S. ( 2000). A ratings based poisson model for world cup soccer simulation . Journal of the Operational Research Society, 51, 993-998.
4.
Forrest, D., Goddard, J., & Simmons, R. ( 2005). Odds-setters as forecasters: The case of English football . International Journal of Forecasting, 21, 551-564.
5.
Goddard, J. ( 2005). Regression models for forecasting goals and match results in association football. International Journal of Forecasting , 21, 331-340.
6.
Heston, A., Summers, R., & Aten, B. ( 2006). Penn World Table Version 6.2. Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices, University of Pennsylvania.
7.
Karlis, D., & Ntzoufras, I. ( 2003). Analysis of Sports Data by using Bivariate Poisson Models . The Statistician, 52, 381-393.
8.
Karlis, D., & Ntzoufras, I. ( 2005). Bivariate Poisson and Diagonal Inflated Bivariate Poisson Regression Models in R. Journal of Statistical Software, 14, 1-36.
9.
Koning, R. ( 2000). Balance in competition in Dutch soccer. The Statistician, 49, 419-431.
10.
Lee, A. ( 1997). Modelling scores in the premier league: Is Manchester United really the best? Chance, 10, 15-19.
11.
Rue, H., & Salvensen, O. ( 2000). Prediction and retrospective analysis of soccer matches in a league. The Statistician, 49, 399-418.
12.
Waters, A., & Lovell, G. ( 2002). An examination of the homefield advantage in a professional English soccer team from a psychological standpoint. Football Studies, 5, 46-59.