The public overvalues the home team. Past results show value in midweek matches, road dogs, and ignoring crowd noise.
In MLS, the house doesn’t always have the edge.
Home teams in Major League Soccer are not nearly as comfortable in front of their own crowd as the big-league teams in European Soccer are.
Not an issue for us though.
Lucky Rebel soccer bettors know there are other ways to find an edge in the beautiful game beyond home and away records.
Home Win Rate Is Lower Than European Leagues
Across the pond, home field is built different.
EPL and La Liga home teams regularly score wins 55-60% of the time.
Shorter travel distances, with no different time zones, mean a road trip is quickly recovered from.
Then there’s the whole atmosphere. Legendary crowds across European football make it tougher for the visitors and boost the home team with decades of tradition in the jersey and in the songs.
Some will tell you the home crowds can even add to the referee’s bias, so take that for what it’s worth.
If you’re used to betting EPL or La Liga, you’ll need a reset when it comes to betting on MLS home teams.
At barely coin flip, home field disadvantage might be the more common term.
There are a couple of reasons to watch for.
Geographical Spread. MLS is a seriously spread out league. If you’re the New England Revolution just returning from playing Vancouver, you’ve crossed 3 times zones and 2,500 miles. Probably not feeling that fresh in your first game or two back home. There are 30 teams all over North America, all with busier travel schedules than any European league.
Parity and Roster Rules: Competitive balance is baked into MLS. As of this season, the hard cap for every team is $5.95 million. No player can make more than around $700K per year. There’s no hoarding of talent. Unlike in La Liga, for example, where Real Madrid’s payroll is €273 million. Sevilla FC? €2.5M. Espanyol, €9M. Major imbalances like this mean a team like Real will dominate at home much of the time.
This means when you’re an MLS team hosting, your visitors are more likely to be close to you talent-wise. Taken over a full season, with everyone being a road and a host team an equal number of times, that 49-50% home win percentage starts to make sense.
Fan Culture. You can bet opposing players feel some level of intimidation stepping onto the pitch at Camp Nou or Old Trafford. The same can’t be said for teams on the road at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park or Subaru Park. (Don’t know which teams play there? That makes our point).
The lack of fan culture, tradition, and passion at MLS stadiums (with a few exceptions) levels the playing field for both sides.
We’re not staying stay away from the home teams all the time. But if you get why this is happening and know what to look for, you make better bets.
This could mean the smart play is to fade the home team and take the road ‘dog, if you see the home team is getting too favorable a spread or moneyline.
Midweek Matches Shrink Home Edge
Teams playing Wednesday games win close to 8% less often at home.
How could a day of the week create such an anomaly?
With the relentless travel schedule of MLS, clubs often play around international breaks and summer tournaments. Those are more weekend games, so mid-week is the time to fit in regular season soccer.
This hits home teams in a couple of ways.
Squad Rotation + Scrutiny = Pressure: With rosters not being all that deep, more bench players see meaningful minutes because the entire team is on short rest. Season ticket holders need to see W’s, which drives up expectations and pressure, while the team itself might be running on fumes.
Fan impact. MLS crowds can already be on the… polite side. Midweek games draw even less attendance than weekend matches. This dilutes home field advantage even more and the visitors feel too comfy.
This 8% figure and the reasons behind it make home team favorites ripe for an upset and a solid payday for Lucky Rebel bettors.
Road Dogs Offer Value in Summer
The stats back it up. Road underdogs like the summer travel season.
They cover more than 55% of the time in July and August.
The league itself always sees several major heat waves, leaving both teams fatigued. This strength-sapping heat erodes the home favorite’s edge, with the road team often just needing a draw or 1-goal game to beat the spread.
There’s also the issue of a lag in the books’ ability to juggle every variable in the MLS.
The European leagues have a deep soccer culture and history. The way the NFL is analyzed with forensic detail is similar in North America, but MLS is still a puppy in comparison.
Sure, stats are tracked for MLS, and the data nerds do have their work to do for every game.
But the granular models for predicting outcomes for the English Premier League (as an example) and the overall analysis and attention – and deep knowledge – just aren’t there for MLS yet.
In Europe, fans and media live and breathe futbol. It’s the only game in town across small villages and in Paris, London, Madrid, everywhere.
All the money surrounding major sports feeds European books and fuels their betting models.
In North America, that money and attention is diluted across so many sports.
And with NFL, NBA, MLB and others coming before MLS, that only leaves a small slice of attention and budget for the media and the Sportsbooks to effectively cover MLS.
Smart MLS Money Moves
For sharps, this is all an opening. Forget narratives and stale data.
Smart money can track local news and player movement often at a much more granular level.
They can also make quick calls based on injuries and scout travel schedules to see who might be returning from a hellish road trip. Even the summer heat waves can leave Lucky Rebel’s MLS bettors with a leg up on the soccer books.
Check the latest MLS odds at Lucky Rebel