Gasping for air: soccer players’ passing behavior at high-altitude

A number of soccer officials have long debated whether to ban soccer games played at high altitude above sea level. This paper explores soccer player’s passing behavior when playing at high elevations using Copa Libertadores data. For this, I propose a range of direct indicators when playing at high altitude: the number of total passes, the number of passes in the opposition’s half, and the number of successful passes. I also review the effects on the percentage of successful passes and the percentage of successful passes in the opponents’ half of the field. Player’s passing abilities are compared for games played away above 2500 m (8202 feet) vis-à-vis those held below that threshold. The results show that the percentage of successful passes rises by about 5.6 percentage points, mostly driven by each player’s behavior in his own half. Following earlier findings by Romer (2006) and Palacios-Huerta (2014), who state that players behave conservatively under certain circumstances, I argue that players’ have prior believes about the effects of playing at high altitude and consequently their risk aversion to lose the ball increases.