Just how good are soccer players at running?

No, you're definitely wrong and you've obviously never played soccer. I know that some WOMEN for usa have worn gps devices and have been recorded running around 8 miles. If you play midfield, you pretty much do not stop running during the whole game. It doesn't matter if the ball is near you or not. You always have to guard someone or get open for a teamate who has the ball. If someone has the ball on the right side and is running down the field, you'll be running down the field, too (even if you play left midfield).

You watch any game above the high school level and you will not see a single player standing, except for the goalie.

I remember the thread from a year ago. I grew up playing soccer three seasons a year. Center midfielder. All state and then all regional in high school. Was in the feeder group for the national team but then bailed to focus on my studies in college. When I was a freshman in high school the track coach tried to get me to go out for track. I bet him that if I could run a sub 5-minute mile, he had to stop bothering me. Ran a 4:51 in Adidas Sambas. End of story. Except that now as a middle-aged f**k, I look back at this story and think that I should have run track because there was clearly some natural talent there. My mistake.

By the same token...when I was in college at a DI program, the standard running test for the soccer team was to run two miles in twelve minutes. Only five or six players (almost all of them midfielders) could crack twelve minutes. Certainly at the pro level in Europe the fitness is better than that; they all can go sub twelve minutes. But there are only a small handful in all of Europe who could crack 9:30 for two miles. Don't kid yourself: at the highest levels, specificity of training means a lot.

I must say this has been a pretty good thread so far. The only problem seems to be that a lot of people are listing off the rare one or two guys who came out and ran fast, and not those who didnt(as much at least). Seems like the best conclusion is that soccer gets one in shape, and there are indeed some excellent runners in the sport, but the best players are not necessarilly blazing fast, and the blazing fast are not necessarilly great players, and that just by virture of being a soccer player, one is not automatically talented in the distances.

Sydney Maree broke 4:00 off of lots of soccer playing and a little running.

you obviously never played soccer... even in high school there are ball boys to throw balls and keep the game going continuously. I think 7 miles a game is a pretty reasonable number in the professional ranks. I played soccer for 11 years and went out for track my junior year and went 52 in the 400, 206 in the 800, and 5:00 in the mile off no training. i ended up going 200 by the end of the season and the next season i went 51, 156, and 431 off about 20-25 miles a week

I've always heard that it's about 6 miles a game for a full 90 minutes, but I have no way to verify that. Soccer's just a different type of running.

I played soccer my first 3 years of HS, picked up cross-country and track my senior year and went 9:21 and 4:25 (16, 32). Granted I ran 90+ mile weeks during the off season, but I still think that 13 years of soccer meant I had that base that many swimmers turned runners also have (eg Webb, Goucher too?).

Just my 2 cents.

One more thing...

I'm going to guarantee that none of the top soccer players can run under 4:30 unless they've been training for it specifically. If anything soccer gives you an aeorobic base. Very few people in the world can go sub 4:30 without at least a couple weeks of intervals and anaerobic development, no matter what the aerobic capacity. A human's body just isn't meant to run that fast naturally. With a 3 weeks of anaeorobic training, I think many of them could, but not right now.

None of the best runners in my high school played soccer, and quite a few of the better soccer players were runners.

I trot out this story every time this kind of thread pops up.

I work for a major university that has a nationally ranked soccer team. A couple of years ago, I watched as the coach put the team through a mile time trial on the track. One guy broke five minutes; most ran in the 5:30 to 6:00 range, and it clearly wasn't easy for them.

The Trotter twins out at Stanford played soccer their first 2-3 yrs of HS before running xc.

Basically there is a lot rubbish witten about soccer players in this thread.

Soccer is a game of skill and good physical fitness is not a prerequisite to be a good soccer player. Maradonna was an overweight little dwarf who buried his head in cocaine every night. He would have jog running a 7 minute mile and he was still one the world's best players. Likewise players such as George Best and paul Gascoigne were drug addicts and alcoholics in their best playing years. Neither would have ran a mile in under 6 minutes and yet they are also some of the best players in history.

At the top flight you are not going to see many soccer players who can run a 5k in less that 17 1/2 mins.

Someone may have already posted this but I don't think pointing to foreign athletes who used to play soccer is good evidence. All foreign athletes likely grew up playing soccer.

Soccer players are continuously in motion, but mostly at a slow jog positioning with explosive bursts of a few tens of meters at most. Aerobic capacity is much less important than anerobic power. Offensive guys with supernatural ball control skills (e.g. Maradonna) don't even need that to be effective.

I was a long term adult league soccer player with pretty weak skills, ok sprint speed, and much better than average endurance. My contribution to the team was mostly as a defensive midfielder, getting back to help the fullbacks on transition and marking dangerous players off the ball to prevent them from gaining possession. In spite of being able to run most anybody into the ground over the course of a game, I was never much of a scoring threat.

The Reality wrote:

Basically there is a lot rubbish witten about soccer players in this thread.

Soccer is a game of skill and good physical fitness is not a prerequisite to be a good soccer player. Maradonna was an overweight little dwarf who buried his head in cocaine every night. He would have jog running a 7 minute mile and he was still one the world's best players. Likewise players such as George Best and paul Gascoigne were drug addicts and alcoholics in their best playing years. Neither would have ran a mile in under 6 minutes and yet they are also some of the best players in history.

At the top flight you are not going to see many soccer players who can run a 5k in less that 17 1/2 mins.

The game has changed a lot since George Best, Gazza and Maradonna were kicking balls around. If you want to play in the Premiership these days, physical fitness is actually very important. I don't see lardy players turning out for Man Yoo, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. I think you'd be surprised how many players could have been great track athletes. Thierry Henry, for one, strikes me as someone who could be a very fast 100m or 200m runner.

I recall a conversation with Seb Coe where he stated that the reason there were fewer world class 800/1500 runners from the UK these days was because of the growth in travel soccer teams that siphoned off the athletes with the right physical attributes in their early teens and kept them exclusively playing soccer.

I agree with that. I wonder if their is any kind of programme designed to spot potential athletes playing football in the lower divisions. There must be a fair few football players who could have more successful careers on the track.

World-class players do indeed run 7-10 miles a game on average. ADDITIONALLY to that, top wingers and strikers have amazing speed. Roberto Carlos was timed in 10.6 for the 100, Quincy Owesu-Obeye (lesser known Arsenal player) even faster than that, and Dennis Rommedahl at 10.2 on the track. Obviously all of these times are hand-timed, but nevertheless it is safe to assume that many world class strikers have sub11 100 speed paired with aerobic runs of up to 10 miles every game.

Would make some mean 800m runners, dont you think?

Why are arguing if some soccer players are averaging 9 - 14 minute miles during a soccer match? Even if they are running that much, it is slow as shit and you could easily walk 7 miles in 90 minutes.

Some soccer players would make good runners, a few could make great runners. Some runners could make good soccer players, a few could make great soccer players. There are a lot of athletes participating in certain sports, that could potentially be better in others. They will never find out though.

I forgot about the halftime break. What is it, 20 minutes or so?

That would mean that in 110 minutes they are covering 7 - 10 miles. Even less impressive considering.