In this paper, we study the impact of air pollution on Chinese professional football players` performance. Our primary research question is whether the negative effects of air pollution can be mitigated by adaptation, and which cohort of players can have higher adaptability. We find that a higher pollution level during the game, relative to the adapted pollution level in players` home cities, has a negative and significant impact on the players` efforts and accuracy. The impact of non-adapted air pollution can be greatly offset by the home advantage, but not by personal attributes such as the higher ability.
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