04/25/24
May 23, 2006
"It is 380 miles by road from Liverpool to Inverness,: and by air from Liverpool to Paris, about as far as 15 marathons. What’s this got to do with football? Nothing, really, except it might help us get our heads round an athlete such as Steven Gerrard. Those 380 miles are roughly the distance Gerrard covered last season while playing for club and country, a 10th of it at sprinting speed or close." The Sunday Times article on ProZone, computer analysis of every 1/10 of a second of football matches that is changing how games are played. Will it also change how games are perceived? [via The Sports Economist]
So it's a shame the new England manager is Steve McClaren really. For more reasons than just this one. I think to the non-soccer viewing (American) world, the sheer numbers may be eye-popping, but not to anyone who has ever played the Anglo-Saxon version of the game at a truly competitive level. The surprising measurement to me is that centre-backs did the least running but even they averaged a fraction under 10km per match (roughly 6.2 miles.) That seems a very high amount of running from the middle of defense (yea...we Americans spell "defense" with an "s". Get over it.)
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY at 01:59 PM on May 23, 2006
Here's the ProZone site (fookin' Flash foolery) - interesting screenshots and PDF brochures for stat and info visualization geeks.
posted by worldcup2002 at 02:10 PM on May 23, 2006
MClaren, in his defence, was one of the first coaches in the UK to use ProZone.
posted by walrus at 04:13 PM on May 23, 2006
That seems a very high amount of running from the middle of defense A centre back replies: Remember, you're probably man marking the opposition striker. So you do the same amount of running as they do, and at the same pace. Also, if you play the offside trap, you are running very quickly out of defence after each attack is repelled.
posted by owlhouse at 02:27 PM on May 24, 2006
Interesting stuff. Commentators have spent years disagreeing with themselves, decrying the continental players filling up the lineups at teams like Arsenal, then moaning about the naivete of the English game, with its preference for physical ability over guile. These stats may show that the two are blending, forming a cultured, yet fast-paced hybrid. So it's a shame the new England manager is Steve McClaren really.