brazilian soccer team

Of course they could not beat a college xc runner. Soccer players are in excellent condition, but they are trained for short period dashes not extended distance runs. The best of them probably could run a 4:45 mile. Lets get realistic.

Saw an article a while ago about the preseason training of a big European club. Their midfielders were the quickest, all in the 4:30's and no field player (meaning all except goalkeepers) ran slower than 4:55. Considering the bunching at the front I don't think it was an all-out effort. And it was preseason.

You constantly see athletes making the switch from soccer to running with almost immediate success. Professional soccer players could definitely beat "a college XC runner." But you're right that their training is not ideal for distant running.

one of Brazil's top road racer, Romulo (second place at the last sao-silvestre 15k) used to be a professional soccer player, i guess he did a road race for fun and did really well and his coach told him that he would be better off running. I guess he wasnt that good of a player, although he played in one of brazil's top clubs

David Beckham has run 2:02 for 800m. Not bad.

The level of fitness of a world class professional soccer player is about equivalent to a 17 minute 5k runner at the absolute best.

Don't fool yourself that they are any better, soccer is more a game of skill than fitness, and I would not classify those guys as well trained athletes by any means.

Footie Fan wrote:

David Beckham has run 2:02 for 800m. Not bad.

.... yes he did BUT would he do it again now? Probably not given the muscle mass that he built up through specific football training.

this is just silly. they're not better runners because they're soccer players! thats what they train to do, play soccer, not run.

while some may not be well trained (the old fat maradonna picture comes to mind) most of those guys are pretty fit.

how would you classify someone as a well trained athlete? by how fast they could run a 5k? you'd eliminate world class swimmers, cyclists, and every other sport that is not running. so really what you are arguing is that these guys aren't runners. and since we established that they are soccer players, you're just restating the obvious.

the point of the thread was whether elite soccer players could beat high schoolers (and some collegians). as far as i can tell a 17 minute 5k can beat most high schoolers, and some collegians (although not many). not bad for guys who don't train to run.

A friend of mine who use to play professional football in england once shown me a copy of his pre-season training schedule. The longest continuous run was only 45 minutes, however other days included lots of fartlek type sessions with short sprints, a hill session (which he said was the hardest), lots of drills and weights after most training sessions. He was fast over a 100 metres (probably 11.2 - 11.5) but he was well built and anything over 400 and i could take him. Also at the beginning of the season the whole squad (goalkeepers included) would complete a 3000 metre time trial.

Soccer players run an average of five-seven miles over the course of a 90 minute game. Fitness is just as important as skill at the highest level of the sport. Why else would some of them be taking EPO? Most of the running is analagous to fartlek training, bursts interspersed with easy jogging. If the question is about an average soccer play versus an average college xc runner, the latter wins everytime. But the original poster cited a very specific group of soccer plays, any 7 of the starting 11 of the Brazilian national team. Those guys are the cream of the crop, the fittest as well as the most skilled. They'd easily beat ANY high school xc team and would give many college xc teams a run for the money. But would a Stanford or a Colorado have to worry? No.

You're on the mark with a 17min 5K prediction for at least 1 player: Jay Heaps of the New England Revolution.

Heaps starred at Duke - National Player of the Year, multi-time All-America, and a walk on on the Duke basketball team who even played in the ACC tourney one year. Heaps was MLS rookie of the year, has been a league all-star, and I think has occassionally been in the national pool (although hasn't played in many international games).

Heaps is fairly skilled, of course, but his real strength is terrific athleticism (5'8" white boy dunked a basketball) that allows him to be dominant on headers and have excellent on the ball quickness. Heaps also runs (or did run) lots of miles. I don't know exactly how many but it wasn't uncommon to see him several miles from the Duke campus, by himself, running easy miles. When I read that he was fairly into running 5Ks for fun and fitness, I looked him up in the results of a local race and saw that he ran in the low 17s. This was 4 or 5 years ago now so I don't know if he still runs 5Ks or what his all-time PR is. I don't think he ran in high school. He grew up in Western Mass and he played soccer, basketball, and either golf or baseball, I think.

reading somewhere that Aouita, I believe, came to running from soccer after running around 8:10 for 3k in soccer shoes!

doped up wrote:

this is just silly. they're not better runners because they're soccer players! thats what they train to do, play soccer, not run.

You've hit it right on there. I would occasionaly play pick up soccer games with my friends back in the day. Even during the times when I was in amazing shape and running my best times, I found soccer to be increadibly tiring. Same thing with moutnain biking. They're different sports and just because a soccer guy can't go under 14:00 for 5k doesn't mean he isn't in great shape or less athletic than distance runners.

This is ridiculous.

Does anyone understand the definitions of athleticism?

Professional soccer players are professional athletes, just like NBA players, NFL players, and Michael Johnson, Marion Jones, Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, etc, etc. All those people are great athletes and many could do multiple sports at the highest levels.

If we took all the soccer players and made them run track, some would be able to compete at the Olympic and World Championship levels, and many others would be competitive at lower levels while some would fail miserably. And if we took all the World's XC runners and made them play soccer, we would inevitable find a handful of athletes who could play World Cup level soccer, while many others could play at lesser professional levels and some would fail miserably.

Great Athletes can do great things in many sports if they would train for them. Without training for them they may do OK because they are still great athletes.

agreed.

with one caveat - not all great athletes can excell at other sports. geb or tergat would be terrible at the shot put. and an nfl lineman would suck at the tour de france.

i'd put it another way: different sports measure different aspects of athletic ability. while some may involve other muscles or techniques (a good basketball player may jump well, as can a long jumper) they are not fundamentally the same thing.

there are however, athletes who can achieve respectable performances in other sports that involve similar skills/movements/capabilities owing to their great athletic conditioning and work ethic.