Professor of Behavioural Ecology, Nick Davies undertook a study on speckled wood butterflies which supported the view that the resident of a territory has an advantage over intruders. Male butterflies defended patches of sunlight within a wood, as females were attracted to this light. By releasing male butterflies at intervals it was established that the first butterfly to arrive at the patch was considered resident and the second the intruder. During contests the intruders would concede defeat readily, leaving the territory to the residents.
There may be several reasons that ownership of a territory confers an advantage. The resident is familiar with the context of the battle and has not had to expend any energy arriving at the contested area. It is also possible that the ‘resident wins, intruder retreats’ strategy is more stable than the opposite. If ‘intruder wins, resident retreats’ was the norm then this would lead to a ceaseless movement of individuals within a species: this would not be an adaptive strategy so would therefore break down. Natural selection therefore favours individuals who engage in territorial defence: there is a greater proclivity to fight harder when defending a territory than when intruding upon it.
Home advantage is a well established phenomenon in football; the above example demonstrates some of the biological underpinnings of this advantage. Statistics from the World Cup show that on the 18 occasions the World Cup has been staged, it has been won six times by the hosts. In two of these instances it has been won by sides which have only been victorious when hosts РFrance and England. Further evidence of home advantage is provided by sides that have performed better as hosts than at any other time: Sweden have only ever made the final when hosts, whilst Chile and South Korea both made the semi-finals when hosts (co-hosts in South Korea’s case). This should provide some comfort to South African fans, who can expect home advantage to have a positive influence, as it seemed to have during the Confederations Cup in 2009.
It is also possible in a global tournament that territory is defined relatively. On the 17 occasions that the tournament has been played in Europe or the Americas, teams from the ‘home’ continent have won 16 times. The sole occasion that this did not happen was back in 1958 when Brazil triumphed in Sweden. And when the World Cup was hosted in Asia, South Korea made the semi-finals even though they were considered amongst the outsiders (although as has been highlighted above they also benefited from being joint hosts). Perhaps then in a World Cup, the continent to some degree becomes the territory to be defended. Climate familiarity may play a factor, but relative proximity to the host nation could also link to an abstracted notion of territorial defence.
On 89% of occasions a team from the ‘home’ continent has won the World Cup. And at 100% of World Cups a team from the ‘home’ continent has made the semi-finals. Based on these figures it is certain that an African side will make at least the semi-finals at World Cup 2010!
I wonder whether this analysis could be applied to styles of play – i.e. are you more likely to be successful playing ultra defensively (resident) (e.g Greece 2004) or all out attack (intruder) (e.g Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle)