With the World Cup fast coming to a close, it seems an appropriate time to look beyond triathlon for a moment and consider the endurance of the world’s great football stars. And in this case, that doesn’t just mean a vague nod to the athleticism of world-class, professional athletes. In fact, among people who play mainstream sports, football players are perhaps uniquely similar to endurance athletes in that they simply do so much running.
It’s not something you necessarily notice or hear about as a casual fan. Throughout the summer, news, betting, and analysis sites have been posting articles about the World Cup, and all of the focus tends to be on tactics and goalscoring. These are the more noticeable and feature-worthy aspects of a match on the world stage, and they’re the easier things to dissect, predict, etc. Underlying all of the more surface-level stats and outcomes of World Cup matches, however, has been an incredible amount of running by players on all teams.
To illustrate this, Business Insider did an analysis of how far prominent Mexican players ran in their opening match against Germany. Hector Herrera, a star defender on the team, ran 7.2 miles over the course of the match to lead the team; the goalkeeper, Guillermo Ochoa, even ran 2.4, clearly moving a great deal more than many would guess a goalkeeper does in the average match. These are awfully impressive numbers, and they don’t even necessarily represent the peak of the endurance challenges players have faced in the World Cup. There are other teams and other players who have run even greater distances relative to their positions.
Now, 7.2 miles over the course of a 90-minute content is not quite an Ironman, but it’s no small test of stamina, particularly given everything else that’s going on. For this reason we might consider football as a perfect side sport for triathletes and other endurance athletes. Nothing tops strategic, regulated training for a specific endurance event, but for those who might be looking for a team activity, or just something different, football is an excellent sport to try. You won’t start off matching Hector Herrera, but you can easily run a number of miles in a match without quite realizing you’re doing it.
Beyond just playing football, some of the training you can do for the sport coincides nicely with endurance training. Building football endurance means an emphasis on cardiovascular exercise, short bursts of energy, and interval training. Naturally if you’re preparing for a triathlon, an Ironman, or a marathon, you’ll need to work in some longer runs and get accustomed to distance. But this sort of football training, combined with playing the occasional match, can supplement your training quite well.
At any rate, it’s something to think about if you, like so many around the world, have been captivated by this summer’s World Cup. Football is a thrilling, challenging sport, but perhaps above all else it’s a test of endurance - which is something all of us who are interested in triathlon can relate to, and perhaps engage with.
