How fast are professional female soccer players?

I have no idea honestly I am just guessing here. the times would vary a lot depending on position.

Here are my estimates:

100m: between 12-13.5s (pro males 1.25s faster)

200m: between 24-28s (pro males 2.5s faster)

400m: between 53-60s (pro males 5s faster)

800m: between 2:05-2:25 (pro males 15s faster)

1600m: between 4:40-5:50 (pro males 25s faster)

5000m: between 16:30-20:00 (pro males 2min faster)

I read somewhere that Casey stoney (England's women goalkeeper) runs a 17:x 5k so the pro midfielders are probably way faster than you think.

Guesser of times wrote:

I have no idea honestly I am just guessing here. the times would vary a lot depending on position.

Here are my estimates:

100m: between 12-13.5s (pro males 1.25s faster)

200m: between 24-28s (pro males 2.5s faster)

400m: between 53-60s (pro males 5s faster)

800m: between 2:05-2:25 (pro males 15s faster)

1600m: between 4:40-5:50 (pro males 25s faster)

5000m: between 16:30-20:00 (pro males 2min faster)

I question a couple of your estimates.

100m (female): I doubt there are any sub-12.5 women 100m pro futbol players. I am sure there are pro female futbol players who cannot sprint any faster than 14.0 100m.

5000m (female): I doubt there are any female pro futbol players able to race sub-17 5K. We're not talking about 5'1" 95lbs. women.

A former team USA female futbol player told me 3 1/2 years ago most females on USA team app. 10 years ago when she played were sub-11:30 two mile runners (most means 50% plus one) and the vast majority were sub-12:00 two mile runners.

14:x is a 12 year old’s time, I’m sure fully grown pro athletes are at least a second faster.

Guesser of times wrote:

I question a couple of your ... wrote:

I question a couple of your estimates.

100m (female): I doubt there are any sub-12.5 women 100m pro futbol players. I am sure there are pro female futbol players who cannot sprint any faster than 14.0 100m.

5000m (female): I doubt there are any female pro futbol players able to race sub-17 5K. We're not talking about 5'1" 95lbs. women.

A former team USA female futbol player told me 3 1/2 years ago most females on USA team app. 10 years ago when she played were sub-11:30 two mile runners (most means 50% plus one) and the vast majority were sub-12:00 two mile runners.

14:x is a 12 year old’s time, I’m sure fully grown pro athletes are at least a second faster.

I don't know what 12 years old has to do with it? Many females reach their peak speed at age 12 before their bodies produce significant amounts of female hormones.

I question a couple of your ... wrote:

Guesser of times wrote:

14:x is a 12 year old’s time, I’m sure fully grown pro athletes are at least a second faster.

I don't know what 12 years old has to do with it? Many females reach their peak speed at age 12 before their bodies produce significant amounts of female hormones.

I guess. But like I stated in the first place, I’m not too sure about women’s times. 14-15 seconds certainly isn’t slow for a woman and infact would indicate she would be quite fit but I was always under the impression pro footballers were not at all that much slower than pro sprinters. Pro females run around 11 seconds and soccer is heavily sprint/power based so I would expect the pro soccer players to be around 1-2 sec slower seeing as they are ELITE after all.

I would put money on there being at least a few sub 12 in the 100. I agree there certainly are some slower than 14.

I also suspect none are running sub 17 in pro soccer fitness. I'm sure a few could train there if they focused on it. Most would be in the 20+ range in current fitness.

My wife played in an adult league with some retired players. My wife ran 12.3 in college. Most of those women were slower than her, but one was as fast. Since that is a small sample size, I assume some small number of pro players are faster than her, some probably much faster.

In defense of some of the 5k times being very slow: I off season conditioning train a current pro male in the MLS, probably in the top 30 in the league (obviously not saying much compared to euro players). He is dismally bad at anything having to do with endurance. He has great acceleration and moderate top end. I would estimate he could currently run in the 11 flat range for 100m and 21 minutes for 5k (he ran just sub 11 in high school when I was coaching him in track).

Again, small sample size, but I'm sure some women players would be running equivalently slower in the 5k, 23 or 24 minutes and that some women players would be just as equivalently fast in the 100m. This kid is considered pretty fast in the MLS, I don't think a lot of players would he faster.

Pro players doing 24 minute 5ks? All out? Not sure I buy that.

Faster than 99% of letsrun. They would all be comfortably under 6 for the mile and 20 for the 5km. Comfortably. Their 100-400m times would be on fire mid season.

Pro women's soccer players (especially the wings / strikers) can probably sprint on a level with D2 female track athletes. Your mid-fielders can probably hang with D2 middle distance athletes. My wife runs in a group with a couple of former college soccer players and they are all solid runners. Look a Mallory Pugh. Her dad was an all American track athlete for Western State, her mom was a decent runner and Mallory was able to beat her in road races from the age of 12. She never really ran track in high school, but I am sure she could roll with the best of them. Competitive soccer is pretty much a year round sport, so you aren't going to see a lot of track times from professional soccer players, but many of them are more than capable.

2:05-2:20 in the 800m

I’ve heard of a few good college teams are required to get under 20 in a 5k TT. That seems like a pretty fast and unnecessary standard to me, I think testing 800 endurance and sprint drills/reaction time would be a better test of soccer-related fitness. I’ve heard of other colleges requiring their players to run 2700m in 12 minutes (basically to get an excellent score on the cooper test - vo2 max equivilent of 47) as a minimum standard. This seems reasonable for college level. I am sure professional women would have higher standards but then again, soccer is just about skill as it is about fitness so there are probably a couple of professionals who run in the 20:00+ range for a 5k but as a universal standard I would bet that the average in professional female soccer would be around 18-19 with their miles in the 5:00-5:30 range. Pro women strike me as very hard workers.

Their 400m times would be much more admirable, scoring in the 55-65 second range.

IMAFAN wrote:

I read somewhere that Casey stoney (England's women goalkeeper) runs a 17:x 5k so the pro midfielders are probably way faster than you think.

1) People routinely make claims without any evidence to support said claims.

2) Outliers exist and by definition do not represent the norm.

13.0 and 5:15

Guesser of times wrote:

I have no idea honestly I am just guessing here. the times would vary a lot depending on position.

Here are my estimates:

100m: between 12-13.5s (pro males 1.25s faster)

200m: between 24-28s (pro males 2.5s faster)

400m: between 53-60s (pro males 5s faster)

800m: between 2:05-2:25 (pro males 15s faster)

1600m: between 4:40-5:50 (pro males 25s faster)

5000m: between 16:30-20:00 (pro males 2min faster)

No way Jose to 53-60s for 400m. More like 57-63

Here's a college freshman with pretty good sprint times:

https://ukathletics.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=7115

who also plays soccer:

https://ukathletics.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=6756

IMAFAN wrote:

I read somewhere that Casey stoney (England's women goalkeeper) runs a 17:x 5k so the pro midfielders are probably way faster than you think.

Published times are almost always grossly inaccurate for athletes in other sports

"I ran it in practice once"

"Wasn't a measured course"

"I'm pretty sure I could run17:00" (right before running a 23:00)

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Publisher wrote:

IMAFAN wrote:

I read somewhere that Casey stoney (England's women goalkeeper) runs a 17:x 5k so the pro midfielders are probably way faster than you think.

Published times are almost always grossly inaccurate for athletes in other sports

"I ran it in practice once"

"Wasn't a measured course"

"I'm pretty sure I could run17:00" (right before running a 23:00)

.

.

.

Right but these are professional athletes, not 13 year olds lying about their running times on quora. Pro women soccer players normally vo2 test In the high 50s which line up perfectly with a 17-19 minute 5k.