Recently Tottenham Hotspur secured a 2–2 away draw against Juventus at the Allianz Stadium, a team who had previously conceded one goal in 16 matches. Many saw this as a good result for Tottenham Hotspur, considering they had the away goal advantage and also because of their home record at Wembley Stadium, only losing once their this season. However, Juventus ran out 2–1 winners at Wembley Stadium and they shocked Spurs and the rest of the footballing world in a matter of minutes. Many suggested that Juventus’ turn around was because of Spurs’ lack of experience, a factor that was never analyzed before this 2nd leg clash. The advantage of playing home has recently diminished in the past 20 years, as away wins become more and more common. Let’s analyze why.

Fans’ ability to travel

As the great Matt Busby said, “Football is nothing without fans.”Players are unable to perform as well when they don’t have as many fans behind them, as they have less motivation to perform well. But now because it’s easier for fans to travel nowadays than in the past, the team are able to put in a similar quality of performance that they normally would if they were playing at home.

No standing areas in the UK

Since the Hillsborough and Heysel disaster, standing areas have been banned in most stadiums in the UK. The best way fans can support their team and motivate them is form them to stand and create as much noise as possible for 90 minutes. In the case of the famous “Yellow Wall” (Südtribüne), fans are allowed to stand for the whole game and support the team, in hope of motivating them.

Players’ ability to travel

Traveling nowadays is definitely less stressful for players, as it’s safer to travel and also because there are more ways to avoid fatigue when traveling. Because players nowadays travel more comfortably, they’re more prepared for away games than before, hence why performance levels amongst traveling teams have increased.

International standards

Nowadays the standards set such as the quality of the pitch are higher than before, and so because of that, the pitch does not play as big of a factor than it did before. Nowadays, teams are able to play on an almost identical pitch(sprinklers, heating, roofs) taking away the factor of how accustomed the home team is to a certain pitch that the away team may not be. In 2001, UEFA and FIFA decided to come up with a quality assurance program about the quality of football pitches, including bringing in artificial turf and 4th generation pitches.