I bet Half the World Cup Soccer players can run a 4:10 mile.

agip wrote:

I do think the best athletes migrate to soccer and let's face it - the remnants do track. So you can't say 'well on my cross country team only 5 guys can break 5" cause most likely the best athletes in the school are doing something else.

You guys need to give that bullshit a rest. The kids on the football, basketball, and baseball teams are not a bunch of potential distance runners who had better things to do.

Dennis Reynolds 2.0 wrote:

Sub 5 - 100%

Sub 4:50 - 80%

Sub 4:40 - 50%

Sub 4:30 - 25%

Sub 4:20 - 5%

Sub 4:10 - 0%

These figures are based on the published mile run results conducted by various club teams from across the globe who have players in the World Cup.

And that's just the women's times.

Incorrect. Only foreign fairies play soccer.

I believe Chris Wondolowski ran a 4:16 in HS. Maybe some Cali guys can confirm. He is by no means one of the speedy players either.

I'm sure most of them could run 4:10 with a minute or two of stoppage time added on.

I think the aerobic fitness of elite soccer players is exaggerated. They stand around a lot.

Pele wrote:

They run all out sprint for 90 plus minutes.

All out sprint for 90 minutes eh?

Considering:

According to The Sunday Times website, midfielders in England's Premiership worked the hardest in the 2005-06 season, running on average 7 miles, 246 yards per game

They must be some pretty dang slow sprinters. 50 second 100m speed ain't exactly blazin it up.

Leroy Buttafuoco wrote:

You guys need to give that bullshit a rest. The kids on the football, basketball, and baseball teams are not a bunch of potential distance runners who had better things to do.

Yes they absolutely are. Most kids never give distance running a shot. If Alberto Salazar hadn't been working at Galen Rupp's school Galen would have continued on to be a middle-of-the-road soccer player.

John-Rocker wrote:

Wrong! Most would struggle to break 6:00.

Probably. Their game is a series of short sprints or strides with long recovery. Someone who trains like that won't be good at a 4-minute sustained effort.

They also have terrible running form. They chop half their strides looking for ways to kick each other or not get kicked by each other. And they heel-strike heavily from a lifetime of running on Astro turf. So they'd be lousy at 400m too.

Manchester wrote:

Leroy Buttafuoco wrote:

You guys need to give that bullshit a rest. The kids on the football, basketball, and baseball teams are not a bunch of potential distance runners who had better things to do.

Yes they absolutely are. Most kids never give distance running a shot. If Alberto Salazar hadn't been working at Galen Rupp's school Galen would have continued on to be a middle-of-the-road soccer player.

Hey, look, maybe you feel inferior because you're 5'5" 115 or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that's a good build for distance running.

I've known plenty of high school guys that come off of soccer training to run sub 2/low 2s for 800 and sub 4:40 for the mile, and girls that came off soccer training to run sub 2:24/sub 5:10. That's with almost entirely soccer training.

Most of these people were midfielders, who are running a ton during the game, especially at a high school level where the players aren't as synchronized as you see the players in the world cup teams, but assume that any of the men playing in the world cup couldn't break 5 is kinda asinine. Hell, the refs can probably all break 5.

Many of those guys could be very, very, very good track athletes if they trained for it, but the fact is they're making at least ten times as much as a decent soccer player than what they would make as a very good track runner. Also with what a part of the culture soccer is in so many of the countries in this world cup (basically every country except the US), soccer is the dream those guys have been aiming towards since they were kids. Not track.

Ronaldo is considered to be fast for a footballer.

Here he is getting smoked by a 10.x guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZqEj-Qyg6U

A 4:10 mile is no easy feat without mileage and a lot of specific training. But I would agree that many could probably run comfortably under 5 minutes for a mile.

Leroy Buttafuoco wrote:

Manchester wrote:

Yes they absolutely are. Most kids never give distance running a shot. If Alberto Salazar hadn't been working at Galen Rupp's school Galen would have continued on to be a middle-of-the-road soccer player.

Hey, look, maybe you feel inferior because you're 5'5" 115 or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that's a good build for distance running.

I am not sure what you're trying to say by that. I am 6' 150. But there are 5'5" 115 lb kids all over high school who never give running a shot, either because they play another sport (and yes even 5'5 kids can play other sports at the high school level, it's not that difficult) or simply were never convinced to try running.

Something to consider is muscle fiber type. A fast striker with a sprinter's fiber-type distribution is going to have a hard time running a fast mile. Those guys also don't cover a ton of ground during the game. One of the reasons you see them jogging or walking so much is that they're trying to stay rested so they can turn on the afterburners when it really matters. The fatigue of a game significantly decreases the top speed of players by the end of the game, to where they're generally only capable of reaching about 92% of their prematch top speed. Running more than necessary makes it even worse. This is one of the reasons that late substitutions can have such an impact. If you sub on a speedy forward, he's got almost an extra 10% advantage over the tired defenders that try to cover him.

Box-to-box center midfielders are totally different. They don't need extraordinary top speed, but they do cover a lot of ground at paces ranging from what would be 1500 to 400 meter race pace. It's not unlike doing an interval workout.

No way any of them can go 4:10. I bet a lot of players cannot even break 5 minutes. Soccer is all about short bursts of speed, and soccer fitness does not translate well to the mile.

Wondo wrote:

I believe Chris Wondolowski ran a 4:16 in HS. Maybe some Cali guys can confirm. He is by no means one of the speedy players either.

I was in his league in high school (EBAL) and can confirm this. He ran solidly in cross as well. It is probably unrealistic to expect he is the only world cup soccer player capable of running fast. There are probably one or two others on the US team who probably could run at a similar level to him, but just never ran competitively, so we won't know.

I would hazard that half the world cup players could probably run under 4:20 with a few months training, but in soccer shape they probably would run more like 4:30 range. I bet they would all run relatively better in the 400 or 800.

Let's not forget we are talking about the top handful of soccer players in the entire country. Being chosen requires them to not only be excellent players, but to also have the speed and stamina to back that up for 3 weeks of competition.

I'm quite certain that there are probably only one or two potential world-class running talents in the world cup, but I would be shocked if the majority couldn't run pretty respectable times if they had been runners instead.

Likewise, there are probably a handful of top middle distance runners in this country that probably could have been world-cup level soccer players had they chosen that route. It is a mistake to think that every top athlete could never have had a chance in any other sport. Of course some would have the talent level to make it in one or two other sports had they chosen to pursue them instead.

DI soccer player (retired) wrote:

No way any of them can go 4:10. I bet a lot of players cannot even break 5 minutes. Soccer is all about short bursts of speed, and soccer fitness does not translate well to the mile.

You are quite correct sir.

Most commenting on this thread don’t appear to know what a quality time 4:10 for the mile is and how difficult it is to finally achieve such a time as a trained runner - never mind a soccer player.

Great troll thread. Did you think of it whilst watching the Argentina/Bosnia game yesterday? They just stood around or jogged around most of the game. What a snooze fest.