Interesting article about pace

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2558/news/2009/12/11/1681285/real-madrids-cristiano-ronaldo-the-fastest-in-football

This is pretty interesting, considering how the mentioned players are rated in FM.

Van Persie, for one, seems to be incredibly underrated in this area

Hm "average speed of 33.6 kilometres/h". That cant be right? They do walk and stand on the pitch sometimes? I'm trying to understand what is this average of. Anyone?

Awful study. No mention of what leagues or how many in fact were studied nor does it offer how the data was collected.

Hm "average speed of 33.6 kilometres/h". That cant be right? They do walk and stand on the pitch sometimes? I'm trying to understand what is this average of. Anyone?

Definitely can't be right. If we say the average running speed is twice the average marching speed (which is faster than a walk), then we'd say that the average person is running somewhere around 12 km/h (from what i can remember, the marching speed is 6km/h, at least it was in world war 1...)

Must be mximum speed surely.

It might be average between with and without the ball in he's sprints.

I doubt Germans would do a bad study, the article was just quoting the study...

So you think they checked all leagues in the world over a season or more?

no I think it is a bad article, quoting possibly good study

You can't say anything about the study with just reading that small article. Nor does the quality of the article mirror the quality of the study. An average speed of 33 kph is definitely wrong, it would mean he would run about 50 kilometres a game (more than a marathon in 90 minutes!). And it would mean that one team would run about 500 kilometres a game O.o

While in FM a team has about 90 kilometres per game IIRC, the value in real football matches is somewhere between 90-120, I believe.

Interesting study. Looks like Van Persie could do with a few more points of pace in FM .

I googled a bit and found a german source stating that Ronaldo is the fastest football player with a max speed of 33 kph (Usain Bolt has a max speed of about 45 kph).

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,548931,00.html

I googled a bit and found a german source stating that Ronaldo is the fastest football player with a max speed of 33 kph (Usain Bolt has a max speed of about 45 kph).

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,548931,00.html

Says its his average speed in the article

I would say Theo Walcott is faster than Cristiano Ronaldo. Probably Aaron Lennon aswell.

I read that when Obafemi Martins was younger, he was so fast that he had the choice of becoming an Olympic sprinter. I also heard the same about Henry.

Says its his average speed in the article

According to Yahoo Babelfish, the article says...

"Cristiano Ronaldo fell itself in this season even at 33.6 kilometers per hour into the opposing Strafraum"

I googled a bit and found a german source stating that Ronaldo is the fastest football player with a max speed of 33 kph (Usain Bolt has a max speed of about 45 kph).

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,548931,00.html

Again, did they test every registered player in the world? If not then it is a joke study.

goal.com is an awful site, too many rumours and lies on that site.

I read that when Obafemi Martins was younger, he was so fast that he had the choice of becoming an Olympic sprinter. I also heard the same about Henry.

Yeah, there was a shortage of decent athletes just after WW2.

David Odonkor or Nedun Onuoha are surely much faster than any of the players mentioned???

In any case, the article and the study are both complete crap. It is top recorded speed, and the figures look way off, clearly not enough matches looked at for each player or something. Castrol I think did a much better study for the premiership over a number of seasons but even that was incomplete.

"Cristiano Ronaldo fell itself in this season even at 33.6 kilometers per hour into the opposing Strafraum"

This is like saying, "Mike said themself that in him a possible Die Uberspieler a 55 to the car of my".

Babelfish

Olic was the fastest player at Euro08 with 31.76 km/h, Ballack was eight (? ) with 30.88 km/h, and C.Ronaldo wasn't even in the top 10.

Not sure many people will agree with me here but pace and acceleration are the two most overrated attributes in both real life and in FM! Can be effective in the lower leagues of football for obvious reasons but at the top of the game people talk about it way to much. Yes you would rather have it than not- but the study that talks about average speed is pretty pointless for me!

Interesting non the less though cheers Saevel.

Let a German help you out: the Spiegel article says Rooney was measured at a speed of 31kph for a 60m sprint, and Ronaldo was the fastest that they measured all season at 33.6kph. Odonkor reaches about 29-30kph. These are only "averages" in the sense that the speed is an average for a single observed sprint. They analyzed a number of videos from a match analysis company that uses special cameras and also provides data for the scouts of the German national team. Nowhere does the article claim to be a complete study, and Ronaldo isn't proclaimed the fastest player in the world - it just says he had the top speed in the games they analyzed.

It's rubbish because Gabby isn't involved in there. It's been proven he's faster than Walcott so if Walcott is in the top 5, so should Gabby, and still be higher than him. I also remember Gabby beating Ronaldo to a ball that was about 30 yards ahead of them both when Villa played Man U last year.

Not sure many people will agree with me here but pace and acceleration are the two most overrated attributes in both real life and in FM! Can be effective in the lower leagues of football for obvious reasons but at the top of the game people talk about it way to much. Yes you would rather have it than not- but the study that talks about average speed is pretty pointless for me!

Interesting non the less though cheers Saevel.

The other point the article makes is the exact opposite of what you're saying. Speed is extremely important at the highest level. It goes into some detail about how Man Utd's tactic of 2008 was unique in that it was built for maximum speed, and obviously you're gonna need some really fast players to make it work. Clearly it's not just about how fast someone runs, but without a couple of these type of players I don't think the tactic could work.

They also have some interesting stats about how little time the defenders spent with the ball: on average less than a second. A stark difference to other teams was observed in the time the full backs spend with the ball, which was much shorter than usual.

It's rubbish because Gabby isn't involved in there. It's been proven he's faster than Walcott so if Walcott is in the top 5, so should Gabby, and still be higher than him. I also remember Gabby beating Ronaldo to a ball that was about 30 yards ahead of them both when Villa played Man U last year.

Nowhere does the article claim to be a complete study, and Ronaldo isn't proclaimed the fastest player in the world - it just says he had the top speed in the games they analyzed.

There you go.

It's rubbish because Gabby isn't involved in there. It's been proven he's faster than Walcott so if Walcott is in the top 5, so should Gabby, and still be higher than him. I also remember Gabby beating Ronaldo to a ball that was about 30 yards ahead of them both when Villa played Man U last year.

That's because they examined a bunch of Champions league games.

That's because they examined a bunch of Champions league games.

Oh right, doesn't make that clear in the article though.

Just seen one of the comments too:

Oh my god has no one thought of agbonlahor or ashley young! No probably not because they dont play for a top well known club but im sure agbonlahor is faster than ronaldo!

xsmug