Strategic Play and Home Advantage: Coaches' Tactical Impact in Serie A
Abstract
We analyze how coaching strategies affect goal difference and home win probabilities using hand-coded Serie A match commentary (2011/12--2013/14). Our dataset captures in-game dynamics, referee actions, and team behavior. Applying generalized linear, logit, and proportional-odds models with robust and bootstrap standard errors, we uncover stable effects across model averaging. Aggressive opening tactics consistently boost performance, while technical actions like crosses and goal-kicks show distinct patterns. Home advantage remains significant after full control. Our approach reveals the economic logic of real-time coaching, offering a novel, data-driven method to study decision-making under uncertainty in competitive environments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.22683,
title = {Strategic Play and Home Advantage: Coaches' Tactical Impact in Serie A},
author = {Francesco Angelini and Massimiliano Castellani and Gery Andrés Díaz Rubio and Simone Giannerini and Greta Goracci},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.22683},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
28 pages, Supplementary Material included (25 pages), 20 figures