why are football matches “at home” or as “visitors” treated like an advantage or disadvantage?

Question

is there any way in which this fact could affect a match by itself?

In: 8717

Answer 1

Everyone here has mentioned the psychological advtange, but there’s a definitive physical advantage as well. Take as an example soccer. And let’s use the western hemisphere as an example. Just in the American continent alone, there’s startling different weather patterns and conditions.

For example, Mexico has a stadium at extremely high altitude called the Azteca. Higher altitude means visitors unused to the thinner air, have an actual physical disadvantage when playing Mexico. I’ve also noticed Canada seems to host all their most important games in their coldest snowiest cities where they have the natural advantage of being used to such conditions.