I thought it was, well, endearing to hear Jack Wilshere's take on how Arsenal can beat Barcelona in their Champions League matchup this week:
Clearly, Wilshere has a theory about how Arsenal needs to play to win at home: play aggressively, dominantly, "in their face" as it were. So why did Wilshere's interview make me chuckle? Honestly, I can think of lots of adjectives to describe Arsenal's football, but "macho" or "aggressive" or "dominant" aren't the first ones to come to mind. So heading into Wednesday's match-up, I'm wondering: how much aggressiveness can really be engineered?
One answer to this question can be found in academic research on the home field advantage.* Lots has been written about the reasons teams do better at home than on the road. We see it in every league and every season, virtually without fail (though there are of course cross-team differences in home field advantage).
For example, take a look at the home-away differences in goals per match I pulled together from data for the first half of this year's season. While average goal levels vary across leagues, home teams outscore away teams. And this advantage can be documented on a number of different dimensions (goals, shots, fouls, etc.).
The enduring question has been why we see these patterns. A number of explanations have been proposed, including crowd effects, referee bias, travel effects, rule changes, tactics, and a few more.
While the sources of this effect have been hard to nail down with any degree of certainty, one of the more innovative and interesting explanations I've come across has to do with human physiology, and specifically hormones (testosterone). According to the authors of a study* linking testosterone and home field advantage, the key explanation is that of "territoriality",
Clever idea, and the authors come to some interesting findings, based on the testosterone levels of different samples of professional and semi-professional footballers in England before matches at home, away, and during practices. One of the important things to know about this is that testosterone levels, while naturally produced by the body, are subject to environmental influences (like playing at home or away).
In a second study, Neave and Wolfson wanted to see if it mattered when teams played particularly fierce rivals - say, in a local derby - v. just another "normal" opponent - and whether playing a regular opponent was different from not playing a match but just training. Here's the result.
As you can see, while the home-away difference in testosterone levels exists regardless of whether players were about to play a fierce or regular rival, the anticipation of playing an extreme rival produced significantly higher levels of testosterone. In contrast, players' testosterone levels when getting ready for practice were halfway between playing a fierce or moderate rival away from home.
The final finding I thought I'd mention had to do with players' positions. The results, shown below, revealed that strikers had higher testosterone levels across the different venues, while the goalkeepers had the lowest levels of all players in training, but the highest levels when facing an extreme rival. The authors speculated that "It might be that the goalkeeper represents the last line of defense and thus will be particularly susceptible to hormonal changes when confronting an important opponent" (noting also that the number of goalkeepers in the study was too small to say anything definitive). As to midfielders like Wilshere, their testosterone levels weren't particularly high, playing at home or away.
What does this mean for Arsenal? The results, taken at face value, suggest that testosterone levels will be higher if players perceive Barcelona to be a fierce rival. As well, they suggest that Arsenal's players will have elevated levels of testosterone, relative to Barca players, and this will help them put a stamp on the game. Certainly, one gets the sense that Wilshere is ready; he's certainly not shy about telling people what he thinks, and he's been arrested twice this past year for being involved in altercations while out and about in London. I suspect his testosterone levels are reasonably high come Wednesday night - but what are the odds that the rest of Wenger's squad will come out guns blazing?
* Neave, N., & Wolfson, S. (2003). Testosterone, territoriality, and the 'home advantage.' Physiology & Behavior, 78, 269-275.
"This year we have to get in their faces and show them what we're all about. When we have the ball, we've got to keep it as well as they can. We've got to change our game a bit to play against Barcelona – we'll learn from last year, but we need to get in their faces and, if you like, be a bit nasty, in a footballing sense, to get the ball back."
One answer to this question can be found in academic research on the home field advantage.* Lots has been written about the reasons teams do better at home than on the road. We see it in every league and every season, virtually without fail (though there are of course cross-team differences in home field advantage).
For example, take a look at the home-away differences in goals per match I pulled together from data for the first half of this year's season. While average goal levels vary across leagues, home teams outscore away teams. And this advantage can be documented on a number of different dimensions (goals, shots, fouls, etc.).The enduring question has been why we see these patterns. A number of explanations have been proposed, including crowd effects, referee bias, travel effects, rule changes, tactics, and a few more.
While the sources of this effect have been hard to nail down with any degree of certainty, one of the more innovative and interesting explanations I've come across has to do with human physiology, and specifically hormones (testosterone). According to the authors of a study* linking testosterone and home field advantage, the key explanation is that of "territoriality",
"One explanation that has received little attention is that of territoriality, the protective response to an invasion of one’s perceived territory. Territoriality is prevalent amongst many animal species, which typically display agonistic behaviours and attack more readily and with greater vigour when defending a home territory. Several studies have shown a ‘home advantage’ for an animal when its territory is threatened or attacked, even when the defender is smaller than the rival, suggesting an important motivational incentive in territorial defense." (Neave and Wolfson, 2003)The authors (Neave and Wolfson) set out to study the effect of territorial behavior by investigating "possible changes in testosterone levels of football players dependent upon match venue." The idea is that higher levels of testosterone are linked to more competitive (and perhaps aggressive) behavior on the field.
Clever idea, and the authors come to some interesting findings, based on the testosterone levels of different samples of professional and semi-professional footballers in England before matches at home, away, and during practices. One of the important things to know about this is that testosterone levels, while naturally produced by the body, are subject to environmental influences (like playing at home or away).
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| Source: Neave & Wolfson (2003) |
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| Source: Neave & Wolfson (2003) |
The final finding I thought I'd mention had to do with players' positions. The results, shown below, revealed that strikers had higher testosterone levels across the different venues, while the goalkeepers had the lowest levels of all players in training, but the highest levels when facing an extreme rival. The authors speculated that "It might be that the goalkeeper represents the last line of defense and thus will be particularly susceptible to hormonal changes when confronting an important opponent" (noting also that the number of goalkeepers in the study was too small to say anything definitive). As to midfielders like Wilshere, their testosterone levels weren't particularly high, playing at home or away.
 |
| Source: Neave & Wolfson (2003) |
* Neave, N., & Wolfson, S. (2003). Testosterone, territoriality, and the 'home advantage.' Physiology & Behavior, 78, 269-275.
