| Home advantage is a well-known phenomenon in sports,especially in football matches.However,a topic that has received less academic attention but is often discussed by players,coaches,commentators and fans is the extra home advantage that a team gains in the second leg home game,namely the second leg home advantage.Second leg home advantage is based on the home and away knockout competition.In modern football matches,the home and away two-leg knockout competition has become a regular and important competition system.The secondleg home advantage effect generally occurs when a team is more likely to win a twoleg knockout match when playing at home in the second leg,that is,both teams have home advantage,but this advantage is greater for the team playing at home in the second leg.Nowadays,most intercontinental matches adopt the home-and-away two-leg knockout competition system.Compared with domestic league and cup competitions,intercontinental matches are more competitive,enjoyable and honorable.Teams and even league associations of various countries generally pay more attention to the results of intercontinental matches.The study on second-leg home advantage will help to improve the team’s performance in intercontinental competitions.By studying the data of 7956 matches of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup from 2000 to 2019,based on the Page and Page research method,logit regression experiment is established to analyze the results,and the following main research conclusions are drawn:(1)It is found that there is indeed a second-leg home advantage in the homeand-away matches of UEFA’s Champions League and UEFA Cup.In addition,the probability of the second leg home team advancing to the next stage is greater.(2)The away goals rule can suppress the second leg home advantage.(3)The extra time will make the second leg home advantage stronger.(4)The more competitive the tournament,the greater the second leg home advantage.Considering that UEFA will abolish the away goals rule from the 2021-2022 season,it is reasonable to believe that the second-leg home advantage in UEFA’s Champions League and UEFA Cup will become greater in the future.Therefore,the paper makes the following main recommendations:(1)It is not a good idea to abolish the away goals rule directly.The paper suggests that the away goals rule should be returned to the competition,but only in extra time.The second leg home advantage in extra time will be partially offset by the away goals rule.In this way,it not only guarantees the slight advantage of the seeded team,but also ensures the relative fairness of the unseeded teams.It is a relatively fair approach while it does not affect the enjoyment of the fans.(2)If the return of the away goals rule is not taken into account,then the penalty shootout can go straight to the end of regular time when it’s still a tie.Eliminating extra time can reduce the time and frequency of matches played when players are tired.Such a move can kill two birds with one stone in order to balance the homecourt advantage in the second leg and reduce the intensity of the matches for players. |
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