Home advantage overrated, says Speid

The home form of the Reggae Boyz in recent years has been far from impressive.

It is an issue that has hampered the national team, over the past few World Cup cycles, with the team tending to fare better on the road than at home.

Reggae Boyz coach Rudolph Speid put this down to how much football has evolved.

Speid said playing at home means you will have the support of fans but, that apart, he does not believe there are any other real advantages in the modern game, while pointing out that teams now have no fear of playing away, and are usually well prepared.

“The advantage of playing home or away is diminishing. Nobody cares about home advantage any more.

“People come and assess your team and what you are going to do.

“There are some things that play out a little bit different when you are home or away, but most teams now adapt to the team that is in front of them and do not care if they are playing away or at home,” he opined.

He pointed to their recent Nations League games against El Salvador and Honduras, which the team won and drew, respectively. They went there with a plan, knowing what to expect in both games.

He said they went in with their plans and the players executed well, despite the very hostile environments.

“We didn’t care where we were. We knew what we had to do. We knew we had to beat El Salvador and we did it with a controlled performance.

“When people thought we should have gone for additional goals. We said professional performance. We just knew what we had to do to keep control of the game right through, which we did.

“Then, when we had to play Honduras and we knew we had to control game in a different way, we didn’t worry about stats or possession. We weren’t concerned if we were home or away. We just wanted to do what we wanted to. We assessed the opponent and played accordingly and I think that is what is playing out more now.”

In the recent Concacaf Nations League Group stage, the Reggae Boyz’s performance home and away was consistent with what it has been in recent times, with a win and a loss at home, while going unbeaten on the road, with a win and a draw, to qualify for the quarter-finals.

Nevertheless, a good home form is usually considered hugely essential for most teams, especially in quests to qualify for major tournaments, but Speid believes that playing in front of your home crowd can sometimes have the opposite effect it should have, and that, when on the road, teams usually have to rely more on themselves.

“One of the psychological effects of playing away is when you only have two supporters in the stands, you have to bond together as a team or you get overrun. I think that helps.

“We were able to identify what we want to look like as a team. The players responded well. It is something they believe in and they responded to it. So that is why we got the results (away) and they could have even been better,” he added.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com