Been following this quite closely over the last month or so in the lead up to the World Cup having come across some interesting facts.
- Russia is a country with a history of state sponsored doping. For those interested, watch Icarus on Netflix.
- The lowest ranked team in the tournament reaches the Quarter Final, beating Spain along the way. Quite an achievement
- All but 2 of the 23 players play their football in Russia, with the exceptions a goaly and Denis Cheryshev.
- In the last few days, Denis Cheryshev has had to answer individual queries following a claim made from his own father that he used a growth hormone to recover from injury previously
All of the above, in isolation aren't enough to prove anything. In addition, how would doping in football be of use to any international player? You cant take a drug to give you a greater first touch or "bend it like beckham".
History and science tells us, you can take performance enhancing substances that allows you to not only sprint at a higher speed, but recover from the sprints at a faster rate allowing to perform more. With this in mind, overall distane covered and speed of sprints over an extended distance are good factor of a teams fitness/performance levels.
In Match 1 their players combined for an overall run distance of 118km.
In Match 2 their players combined for an overall run distance of 115km.
Serbia (against Switzerland) was at 116 km for the match, now in 2nd, though Russia is still way ahead in average across two matches.
Let’s put that number in some perspective. It includes all players, including the goalkeeper. Once you take out the Russian goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, the Russian outfield players (combined with their subs) are averaging 11.3 kilometers run over the course of a match. That’s more than a full kilometer per player over the average outfield player for other World Cup squads, and 0.4 kilometers per player more than the average of any other team (Serbia and Australia).
If you balance that our with Palace for example, sometimes on match of the day we see Luka, Cabaye, Townsend or Wilf being highlighted for the amount of ground they covered. This is normally a figure of around 10-12km. Now, in this world cup, every Russian outfield player is averaging that level.....
Now, kilometers covered can depend on a lot of factors, such as game flow, how much slow build-up attacking play and possession there is in one end, versus counterattacks and flowing action. It can also depend on game score and tactics. For example, a team with a lead might play either a high possession game with more control, or defend in their own end and not risk exposure however this doesn’t really help a Russian case here. The other five matches where a team won by 3 or more goals in this World Cup, as Russia has in both against inferior opponents, saw the victors run less than the average (103.4 km combined on average, versus 116.5 by Russia).
Sprints.
Over the group games, Russia top this stat too.
In comparison to Brazil who have Neymar & Countinho they covered on average 356 sprints in the group matches or Belgium with Hazard & Lukaku 353, little old Russia, top the chart with an average 412 sprints per match, more than 15 times more than the next team, Croatia.
In the Spain v Russia game, Spain covered 137km vs Russia 146km
Golovin - Covered 16km on his own! 10km of this not in possession!
At the end of the game, the Russians barely looked tired whilst the Spanish had treatment for cramp for many.
I also took a look back at Euro 2016.
Once again, this time only 1 non Russian based player in the squad.
However in their 3 group matches, only the following distances were covered.
Match 1 - 109km
Match 2 - 112km
Match 3 - 107km
However Russia struggled in this tournament, and finished bottom of the group behind Wales, England and Slovakia. From this, only 7 of that squad survived the 2 years, including Golovin and the keeper. Now all of a sudden numbers are higher than ever and performances better than ever?
Its been nice knowing you...
- Russia is a country with a history of state sponsored doping. For those interested, watch Icarus on Netflix.
- The lowest ranked team in the tournament reaches the Quarter Final, beating Spain along the way. Quite an achievement
- All but 2 of the 23 players play their football in Russia, with the exceptions a goaly and Denis Cheryshev.
- In the last few days, Denis Cheryshev has had to answer individual queries following a claim made from his own father that he used a growth hormone to recover from injury previously
All of the above, in isolation aren't enough to prove anything. In addition, how would doping in football be of use to any international player? You cant take a drug to give you a greater first touch or "bend it like beckham".
History and science tells us, you can take performance enhancing substances that allows you to not only sprint at a higher speed, but recover from the sprints at a faster rate allowing to perform more. With this in mind, overall distane covered and speed of sprints over an extended distance are good factor of a teams fitness/performance levels.
In Match 1 their players combined for an overall run distance of 118km.
In Match 2 their players combined for an overall run distance of 115km.
Serbia (against Switzerland) was at 116 km for the match, now in 2nd, though Russia is still way ahead in average across two matches.
Let’s put that number in some perspective. It includes all players, including the goalkeeper. Once you take out the Russian goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev, the Russian outfield players (combined with their subs) are averaging 11.3 kilometers run over the course of a match. That’s more than a full kilometer per player over the average outfield player for other World Cup squads, and 0.4 kilometers per player more than the average of any other team (Serbia and Australia).
If you balance that our with Palace for example, sometimes on match of the day we see Luka, Cabaye, Townsend or Wilf being highlighted for the amount of ground they covered. This is normally a figure of around 10-12km. Now, in this world cup, every Russian outfield player is averaging that level.....
Now, kilometers covered can depend on a lot of factors, such as game flow, how much slow build-up attacking play and possession there is in one end, versus counterattacks and flowing action. It can also depend on game score and tactics. For example, a team with a lead might play either a high possession game with more control, or defend in their own end and not risk exposure however this doesn’t really help a Russian case here. The other five matches where a team won by 3 or more goals in this World Cup, as Russia has in both against inferior opponents, saw the victors run less than the average (103.4 km combined on average, versus 116.5 by Russia).
Sprints.
Over the group games, Russia top this stat too.
In comparison to Brazil who have Neymar & Countinho they covered on average 356 sprints in the group matches or Belgium with Hazard & Lukaku 353, little old Russia, top the chart with an average 412 sprints per match, more than 15 times more than the next team, Croatia.
In the Spain v Russia game, Spain covered 137km vs Russia 146km
Golovin - Covered 16km on his own! 10km of this not in possession!
At the end of the game, the Russians barely looked tired whilst the Spanish had treatment for cramp for many.
I also took a look back at Euro 2016.
Once again, this time only 1 non Russian based player in the squad.
However in their 3 group matches, only the following distances were covered.
Match 1 - 109km
Match 2 - 112km
Match 3 - 107km
However Russia struggled in this tournament, and finished bottom of the group behind Wales, England and Slovakia. From this, only 7 of that squad survived the 2 years, including Golovin and the keeper. Now all of a sudden numbers are higher than ever and performances better than ever?
Its been nice knowing you...
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire