This paper assesses the role of distance in professional team sports, taking the example of football (soccer). We argue … and conceded goals ('goal difference') as a measure of the overall success of a football team, we observe a significant … that a team's performance in terms of scored and conceded goals decreases with the distance to the foreign playing venue …

1,908 soccer matches played in the German Bundesliga during the seasons from 2007-08 to 2015-16. Using a very rich data … also shows that these soccer-specific findings have some implications for the design of contests in general. …