A-League Round 6 - Facts & Figures

Home Ground Advantage – or is it?

The long-held notion of a home ground advantage is not holding up so far after five rounds of the Hyundai A-League.

In the league’s first 20 matches, only six home teams have recorded victories. Away teams have won more often, with eight wins until now; the ratio of home wins over away wins so far in the A-League therefore stands at 0.75.

In most major league competitions of the world, the ratio of home wins to away wins is generally between 1.5 and 2.0; in other words, home teams win almost twice as often as away teams.

In the top five leagues of Europe for instance (Spain, England, Italy, Germany and France), the overall ratio of home wins to away wins in 2004-05 was 1.96.

Closer to home, in the final season of the Australian NSL (2003-04) the ratio of home wins to away wins was 1.65.

The lack of advantage for home teams in the 2005-06 A-League seems to be continuing on from the trend observed in the league’s pre-season cup competition, where the number of home team victories (five) was exactly the same as the number of away team victories.

While all eight teams have recorded victories so far in the A-League Regular Season, three of these teams (Central Coast Mariners, New Zealand Knights and Sydney FC) are yet to notch their first home win of the season.

Central Coast and New Zealand both get an opportunity to strike their first home win this coming weekend; the Mariners are up against Melbourne Victory at Central Coast Stadium on Friday, while the Knights take on league leaders Adelaide United at North Harbour Stadium on Sunday.

EPL Legends to Battle it out in the West

Two of the most prolific players in the history of the English Premier League will square up in the A-League this Saturday when Perth Glory hosts Sydney FC at Members Equity Stadium.

Perth’s Brian Deane and Sydney’s Dwight Yorke both hold prominent records in one of the world’s most prestigious competitions.

Deane – who made 286 appearances and scored 70 goals in ten EPL seasons - was the scorer of the first goal of the EPL on 15 August 1992 when he netted for Sheffield United in a 2-1 defeat of Manchester United.

Yorke meanwhile won three consecutive EPL Championship medals from 1998-99 to 2000-01, and was the league’s top scorer in 1998-99; in total the 33 year old scored 122 EPL goals in 348 appearances from 1992 to 2005.

The pair confronted each other in the EPL on ten occasions over eight years, with Yorke having the overall honours having been on the winning team six times.

Yorke scored three goals in these ten encounters (twice in Aston Villa’s 3-0 defeat of Leeds on 03-02-96 and once in Manchester United’s 1-0 win over Middlesbrough on 09-05-99), while Deane scored once (in Leeds’ 2-0 win over Aston Villa on 16-03-94).