The advantage of scoring just before the halftime break – pure myth? Quasi-experimental evidence from European football

Philippe Meier (), Maximilian Rüdisser (), Raphael Flepp () and Egon Franck
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Philippe Meier: Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich
Maximilian Rüdisser: Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich
Raphael Flepp: Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich

No 382, Working Papers from University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW)

Abstract: We examine whether the moment just before the halftime break is a particularly good time to score a goal. Using detailed data from the top five European football leagues between the 2013/14 and 2017/18 seasons, we exploit the quasi-random occurrence of goals scored just before and just after the halftime break. In the former situation, the game is exogenously inter-rupted by a break immediately after the goal, whereas in the latter situation, the game continues without interruption. We show that in the case of a goal being scored just before halftime, the scoring team benefits more from the halftime break than the conceding team.

Keywords: football; football myth; halftime; scoring; quasi-experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L83 Z20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2019-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-spo
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