Home field advantage, MLS, 2005

[superdave]

There were 192 matches. In those matches, the home teams scored 306 goals and conceded 245. That's a difference of 61, or .318 per match.

Home teams collected 320 points, road teams 212. So home teams earned 1.667 points per match, and road teams collected 1.104 PPM.

Interestingly, home teams got almost exactly 50% more points than road teams.

[NoSix]

There were 192 matches. In those matches, the home teams scored 306 goals and conceded 245. That's a difference of 61, or .318 per match.

Home teams collected 320 points, road teams 212. So home teams earned 1.667 points per match, and road teams collected 1.104 PPM.

Interestingly, home teams got almost exactly 50% more points than road teams.

Based on your data, home teams scored 1.59 and conceded 1.28 goals per game. Assuming goals are Poisson-distributed, home teams would be expected to win 44.8% of matches, and draw 24.6% for an expected point total of 1.590 pts per game, compared to 1.164 pts per game for visiting teams. So home teams did a little bit better than expected point-wise, given the observed goal difference, but not unusually so.

[superdave]

So home teams did a little bit better than expected point-wise, given the observed goal difference, but not unusually so.
Is this another way of saying that given GF and GA, road teams had more blowout wins than you'd expect, and home teams fewer?

[NoSix]

Is this another way of saying that given GF and GA, road teams had more blowout wins than you'd expect, and home teams fewer?

Could be. You would have to look at the distribution of each final score vs. its expected value to figure that out.