Handicap for home teams?

[jcohen42]

I've started to notice over the past couple seasons or so that away teams are doing better than expected. In football, home teams are supposed to have the advantage, and it is supposed to be harder to win on the road, but I suspect that there is some kind of handicap in place to make away teams more competitive.

Consider:

• In my league, of the 19 games that have been played thus far, the Home team has a record of 7-3-9
• In my champions league, of the 21 games that have been played, the Home team has a record of 8-4-9
• In the corresponding Nivea league, of the 46 games that have been played, the Home team has a record of 22-8-26
• In my cup, of the 80 games that have been played thus far, the Home team has a record of 35-12-33
• Totaling all of the above games (176 total games), the Home team has a record of 72-27-77

Also, In my own games, of the 7 games I have played, the Home team has a record of 0-1-6. (!)

Of course, my own games are a very small sample size, but the fact that only Cup give the Home team more wins, and only 2 more wins at that, worries me. The Nivea league results are especially telling, I think, since we are at the point where teams are starting to play each other twice, and the fact that the Away teams have a 4-win advantage just seems unrealistic. I feel like there has to be something going on within the system to give Away teams more of an advantage than they used to have.

Has anyone else noticed this in their competitions? I'd be interested to see what everyone else's records are. I also may track this throughout the season to see if it evens out.