Geography of Goals
Altitude, latitude, distance and isolation: how much does the physical world shape results? Some of the answers are large, and some of the things everybody knows turn out not to be there.
Reading The Host Surplus
A home win rate mostly tells you how good the home team is. To measure a place, this page compares what hosts actually took from their games with what their ratings said they should: a win is one point, a draw half. The host surplus is the difference per 100 games. Hosts everywhere beat expectation a little, so every figure is shown beside that baseline.
The Altitude Effect
Do hosts do better the higher the ground? Measured against expectation, yes, and sharply above 2,000 metres.
Altitude Against Host Surplus
Each point is a city with 20 or more rated home games, sized by games hosted.
The Highest Grounds
The loftiest cities with enough games to judge. Altitude helps most, but not all.
Latitude Bands
Teams grouped by how far north or south their home is: what they score, what they concede, and what happens when two neighbours meet.
Far North is 55°N and beyond, Northern 40-55°N, Subtropical North from the Tropic of Cancer to 40°N, Tropical between the tropics, and Southern everything beyond the Tropic of Capricorn. A team is placed by its home location.
The Travel Factor
Does a long journey cost results? Across the whole record, barely: the away win rate is much the same at 300 kilometres as at 7,000.
Distance Travelled Against Result
Win rate by how far the team travelled. The boxes show how widely individual teams differ.
Distances are estimates: a team is taken to travel from home, or straight from its previous venue when the two games are a few days apart or in the same finals tournament.
Most Travelled Teams
Island Nations
The most isolated island nations, by distance to their nearest neighbour. Isolation does not make a fortress: island hosts beat expectation by less than mainland ones.
The arrow is the host surplus: points per 100 home games above or below what the team's rating expected. Island nations with 30 or more rated home games.
Global Goals Map
Average goals per game in every city with 10 or more games. Size is games played; colour is goals.