DORTMUND, Germany — There are nine nations that share a border with Germany. Eight of those nine qualified for Euro 2024. Six of those eight made it through to the Round of 16.
We all know about home field advantage in sports, but what about home-away-from-home advantage?
As Euro 2024 reaches its business end, it is well and truly following soccer’s tried and trusted trend, an unwritten rule which states that countries situated in close proximity to the host nation — and usually the host nation itself — will do well.
If you count Germany’s neighbors and add in Julian Nagelsmann’s young and enterprising German team, plus Turkey, which enjoys every game like it’s a home fixture due to this country’s massive Turkish community, then fully half of the Round of 16 field has some tight familiarity with their surrounds.
And it is clearly helping.
“They have lifted us,” Austria’s Marcel Sabitzer told reporters, when asked about the huge contingent of his compatriots who cheered the team to first place in Group D ahead of France and the Netherlands. “They are amazing.”
“The fans are massive,” said Netherlands defender Virgil Van Dijk. “We don’t take that for granted. We really need them here behind us, supporting us, to come with us.”
If these things are noticed by players through the currency of crowd noise and the adrenaline it produces within, then the fans notice through their wallets.
Getting to these Euros, for huge numbers of traveling supporters, has been relatively easy and inexpensive. Saturday’s clash between Germany and Denmark is in Dortmund, around a five-hour drive from the Danish border.
Trains from the Belgian capital of Brussels and Cologne, where Belgium won its only group game, take little more than two hours.
Switzerland got to play in Frankfurt, less than 300 miles from its biggest city, Zurich.
It has created one heck of a party.
“Central train stations are hives of nomads who jump from city to city following their teams, and the old city centers of the host cities become melting pots of nationalities that dot the terraces and sidewalks,” wrote Ladislao J. Monino, rather poetically, in Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Territorial factors have long been known to affect major soccer tournaments and, while there isn’t much actual science behind it, there is a lot of evidence suggesting a real and practical advantage for teams that come from nearby.
Across the entire history of the World Cup, only one South American team has ever won the tournament when it has been staged in Europe, Brazil’s sensational 1958 side inspired by a teenage Pele.
Likewise, there has only been one European winner at a South American-based World Cup, Germany in 2014, when Mario Götze’s winner sunk the hopes of Lionel Messi and Argentina.
Given that no team from outside Europe or South America has ever won the World Cup, it was thought that the last event, in Qatar in 2022 would confer little to no advantage.
However, teams that shared the Asian confederation (AFC) with Qatar, as well as countries from the Arab world, punched above their weight.
Saudi Arabia beat Argentina in a group stage stunner, Tunisia beat France, Australia made the last 16, Japan beat Spain and Germany and topped a group containing both of them, while Morocco went on a dream run all the way to the semifinals.
“Geography matters,” FOX analyst Alexi Lalas told me. “We see it time and again.”
Naturally, the Euros are more compact, based off the simple fact that they contain teams from only one continent. But Germany’s size and central location helps a lot. It is easy to get to, and easy to get around, and feels like the perfect place for a bucket list trip, especially for countries where a hop over the border is all that is needed.
There has been no shortage of visitors from non-neighbors too, with Scotland supporters especially well received by the locals and large convoys coming to get behind Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary in the group stage.
Perhaps the noisiest set of fans, however, belongs to Turkey. It is estimated that Germany is home to 2.9 million people who also either hold or are eligible for Turkish citizenship. Tuesday’s clash between Turkey and Austria in Leipzig is expected to have one of the best atmospheres of the tournament.
“We want to keep making history,” head coach Vincenzo Montella said, when reminded that Turkey’s previous two trips past the group stage were both in areas with a big Turkish population, Belgium/Netherlands in 2000 and Austria/Switzerland in 2008.
“We have their noise behind us, and we have their spirit.”
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