Barcelona internal report: “Competition behind closed doors”

The Barcelona leaves nothing to chance. Aware that the new normal will involve playing the next matches at the Camp Nou without an audience, a deep and detailed study to verify in what measure will affect this new situation to the players. Under the title 'Closed Door Competition: Can change the results of the parties? ', the document concludes that there a real incidence in the negative stimulation from players to not have the support from his hobby in the stands, as well as a substantial incidence in the arbitration decision making.

For starters, the report notes that the LaLiga local wins index is from a 61.1% average this season, a balance that has the highest exponent in Calcium, with 62.25%, while the Bundesliga offers the worst average, 58.35% of local victories. If From Barcelona, his average shoots up to 93% of home wins this year, with a balance of 13 wins in 14 games, the highest in all LaLiga. In fact, only Real Madrid de Zidane (0-0) has been able to scratch a point in the Blaugrana coliseum this year.

Since I know competitions resumed after confinement, this percentage of local victories It has been reduced 10%, as reflected in the report. Players are greatly affected by both psychic and metabolic stimuli, the absence of public. In fact, the hormone reduction like testosterone or cortisol in players who play at home is one of the evidences more palpable in games without an audience. The Camp Nou prepares a series of actions for the players don't feel so alone in the games. In the first tier you will see a mosaic with the letters: 'Here we all play', while in the corners will be placed banners and flags with messages of encouragement. Canvases will also be displayed behind the goals with the mottos 'More than a club' (Gol Norte) and 'Here we play all' (Gol Sur). At match this Tuesday against Leganés You can see all these actions that aim to make players feel supported at all times by their fans.

Special attention is engaged in inform the referees, those who are also supposed to be affected by playing behind closed doors when making decisions. According to the document, the noise in the stands usually cause 15% of wrong decisions to favor of the local team, as well as when take out cards to the visiting team: since the games without the public are played, 0.5 fewer yellow cards have been shown to the visitors.

Within the report, there are a number of arguments which are at least surprising: the fact of playing without an audience will affect more “the teams of small geographical areas with a very strong ethnic identity “, before” the teams of big cities. “Likewise, the document warns Quique Setién that “the coaches will have to prepare the footballers very well to face a very different competition atmosphere to which they are accustomed “, while concluding that” there other factors such as prior preparation, the level of rivals, luck and the lesions, that can end up conditioning and influence the results“