Could England's World Cup stars be Olympic runners?

Gareth Southgate’s team includes some of Britain’s best-paid and most high-profile athletes, and they’re clearly in great condition. Could they have been heroes on the track or road too?

England have qualified for the second stage of the World Cup after a great start

They’ve fought off midges and kept calm in the face of some pretty brutal treatment from opponents, but the workrate of England’s players at the World Cup in Russia has been pretty impressive too.

Excluding the goalkeeper, the average distance covered by each player against Tunisia and Panama in their group games was 10km, give or take a couple of metres, according to Fifa’s statistics.

The greatest distance run by any one player was 11.6km by Eric Dier against Belgium and striker Raheem Sterling hit a top speed of 33.1 km per hour in the second game, against Panama.

Impressive? The speed certainly was, although it would have been measured over a very short distance; the ground covered by the team was about average for professional footballers and takes place over 90 minutes or more.

Kyle Walker - one of England's faster players - competed over 100m for Sheffield as a schoolboy

It’s obvious that these players – among the world’s best – are in great physical shape but trying to gauge how great in running terms is difficult because the nature of their fitness is specific to their sport.

Fifa has provided data for players in each match across five speed zones - an indication of the stop-start nature of the game and the range of running ability players need to have – and the balance of speed and endurance required depends on the position or role of each.

As football fans will no doubt know, strikers tend to need the most explosive speed and to cover less distance than others, while midfielders traditionally have the greatest workload; the balance and nature of each match, and a team’s playing style, also influence levels of running required.

The amount and type of running players do has changed over the years, too. In the last decade, the number of sprints in each game has increased hugely, while the total distance has fallen slightly, according to the BBC.

The sport’s players still cover more mileage on average than other running-driven sports, such as rugby, hockey, tennis and basketball, and the number of matches top players compete in means they build up a lot of mileage in their legs throughout the ever-extending seasons.

But long-distance running fitness – the sort that used to be demanded in pre-season – is no longer the order of the day. Top-level training sessions teach players to tap into all their energy systems, because they will need them in matches.

Footballers' training might lend itself to development in explosive disciplines like 100m

Fartlek sessions and sprints rather than tempo runs or long slow distance efforts are more frequent for footballers, and sprint distances seem the most likely footballers could transfer to. The physiques of some players appear comparable to 100m stars and defender Kyle Walker - one of England’s faster players - competed over that distance for Sheffield as a schoolboy.

Hypothetically, there would be potential, generally, for players in track or road running if they transferred and trained at the right stage in their development. Certainly, the reports of the VO2 max levels (a measure of the body’s ability to use oxygen) of professionals are very impressive, with David Beckham reputed to have completed the bleep test.

A long-term study in Norway concluded 2012 that the average professional player – from the top to the bottom level – had the same Vo2 max as a 2:36 marathoner.

However, the record of former players in marathons though is nowhere near elite level. Michael Owen, who was a speedy top-level striker, finished the 2014 London Marathon in 3:45, former Ireland winger Kevin Kilbane ran it in 3:14 in 2013, but neither could hold a candle to Spain’s Luis Enrique, who ran the Florence Marathon in 2:57 in 2007, three years after he retired as a player.

At the 2018 London Marathon, a Hassocks player, James Westlake, from the Southern Combination Football League’s top flight – nine levels below the Premier League in England – finished in 2:24 and as seventh Briton, showing the two sports can be combined.

Westlake may be more runner the footballer, though, with that sort of time, and for England’s players it is the reverse. Let’s hope their impressive fitness keeps powering them on in Russia.

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