Gasping for air: soccer players’ passing behavior at high-altitude

Abstract

A number of soccer officials have long debated whether to ban soccer games played at high altitude above sea level. This paper explores soccer player's passing behavior when playing at high elevations using Copa Libertadores data. For this, I propose a range of direct indicators when playing at high altitude: the number of total passes, the number of passes in the opposition's half, and the number of successful passes. I also review the effects on the percentage of successful passes and the percentage of successful passes in the opponents' half of the field. Player's passing abilities are compared for games played away above 2500 m (8202 feet) vis-à-vis those held below that threshold. The results show that the percentage of successful passes rises by about 5.6 percentage points, mostly driven by each player's behavior in his own half. Following earlier findings by Romer (2006) and Palacios-Huerta (2014), who state that players behave conservatively under certain circumstances, I argue that players' have prior believes about the effects of playing at high altitude and consequently their risk aversion to lose the ball increases.

CONMEBOL Libertadores Cup: Altitude impact on goals and results in 16 years of soccer matches

“…Tucker et al (2004) conditions. This statement coincides with the observations made by Tovar (2014), who reported an increase in the percentage of successful passes made by each player in his half during soccer games above 2500 m.a.s.l in the CONMEBOL Libertadores Cup.…”

“…Notwithstanding, we cannot guarantee that altitude will be an advantage for the home team. Nassis (2013) and Tovar (2014) state that the maximum speed of players and their number of goals scored, and mistakes made by goalkeepers leading to goals are not significantly influenced by altitude. Plus, the authors found no differences attributable to altitude in various technical aspects such as total number of passes, number of passes in the rival field, and number of successful passes when comparing matches in the 2013 CONMEBOL Libertadores Cup.…”

Emotions and Performance: A Quasi Natural Experiment from the FIFA World Cup

“…Given that the choice of variables to estimate the expected pass indicator is ad hoc, we perform a forward selection method as done, for instance, in Tovar (2014). The estimation considers all types of passes considered by OPTA (head, chip, long ball, others), the pitch coordinates, distance, and angle.…”

Performance, Diversity and National Identity Evidence From Association Football

“…The players' skills S , at the team level, can be measured using some aggregation of individual performance indicators such as passes, as done in the past by Anderson and Sally () and Tovar (), among others. Other proxies employed are aggregations of various performance measures—the Opta Index for instance (“a major step” towards measuring a “‘collective’ nature of player performance”—Dawson, Dobson, and Gerrard ).…”