As a soccer player myself, I was wondering how fast are the elite professional soccer players? I think someone here is a conditioning coach for professional soccer players and i was wondering if there are any numbers out there? I wonder if any pro soccer players like Henry can run around a high ten for the 100.
My fellow conditioning coach Bryan Tobias used 30m to 40 yards since those are well reasearched (a lot of times to compare) his pro soccer players (MLS to European leagues) and we found that 4.4-4.6 was the norm for the big boys and 4.5-4.8 for the MLS dudes. Cleans was the diet and my imput was minimal…more like volumes and warm-ups.
Apparently, Dennis Rommedahl has run 10.3 while Julius Agaghowa - probably the fastest player I’ve seen - has also run a 10.3. I’ve heard Roberto Carlos has put out a 10.6 before but I’ve seen him outpaced by others in the past.
on the 10 6 by roberto carlos…when he came to Italy he stated 11 then on another occasion 10 9 and so on…it must have been on training standing and manual timingi…that is a 10 6 wortha 11 20-11 30…
I work a bit with a Premership team in England, but I haven’t seen anyone as quick as that. Admittedly we don’t test over 100m (not the most relevant for soccer) but over 20m we see times in the region of 2.8-2.9s. I think players like Henry could be even quicker but only over short distances (less than 50m). Obviously, this is using timing lights that are triggered when the athlete moves through them, so there is no reaction time involved (otherwise they should become sprinters not soccer players… 
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thanks for the information guys. I’m amazed at the members here, so much knowledge from all different fields.
If I got given a Pound coin for everytime I hear about these footballers who can ‘apparently’ run these mid to low 10 100m times I’d be in the Forbes Top 10 Billionaires. These times have never been proved nor I bet were they run under proper competition conditions (starter,gun,blocks,time keepers etc.) Any Joe can ‘mark’ out 100m get some dude with a stop watch and clock 10.3! I and other fellow full time atheltes find it insulting to even think that these guys running of at the mouth talking about they ran this and they run that! Please! I run and train with guys who are 10.2/10.3 and i’ve seen the amount of effort and hard training it takes to run these times. There’s only one way to stop this nonsense…have a inter-sport run off. Show that these ‘football wanna -be sprinters’ are really running about 11.2.
In soccer it’s not all just about pure speed.Very much also depends about how fast, players lead the ball,about theirs reaction times,tehniques,previsions…And the best players are not the fastest.
exactly!!! I used to train in a soccer club and the players ues to tell me that they can beat me each and everytime they come down to match me. I always ask them to do so but they never dare. I know they will not be able to match my 10.57FAT but still they have a BIG mouth!! Strangely I never go up to them and tell them that I can handle the ball better than any of them or I’ve never told them that I can shoot the ball better than them since I can full squat a 160m max ( full ). Its because I THINK and understand that specifity is a factor. He can shoot a ball better and faster than me but He can’t run faster than me!!
Yes! I agree totally! Sprinting is a skill…just like football…hours and hours of practice…How many footballers (while running for the ball) do u see executing sprint technique!!! I scored many goals the other night during a kick about…I guess that means I can now mix it in Seria A! GOOOO 
AAAALLLLLLLL!
I agree - I don’t think they can run low 10s for 100m, but then again for soccer they don’t need to be able to run 100m! Average sprint for a striker is between 10-30m max. I’ve looked at this topic a fair bit with pro athletes from a variety of sports and there isn’t a great deal of difference between the average sprint times across the sports (soccer, rugby union, rugby league, field hockey and lacrosse). I think if these guys could run sub 11.5s for 100m then that would be fairly impressive considering most of the coaches (especially in England) are still making them do lots of long slow distance work for much of their pre-season.
Just my 2cents worth
I saw some soccer players time their 100m on the gass pitch goal to goal. I believe that is less than a 100m in most soccer pitches!!
maybe in the past…now an international union or league wing…has to be faster…and lots of it…there are many internationale players which posted impressive time in track competitions at coleege, and many more with faster 40 m timing who appear faster on the field…for example, the great nz wing doug howlett has run 10 63 or 57? at the university…and it shows on the field…but is a bit slower than teammate rokokoko, who has a faster 40m , 4"66 instead of 4"72…or jonah lomu 10"97 at 16 years old!but i can post tens of examples…the fact is, that in “oval ball” sports, in some positions, the faster the better…in soccer, field hockey and the majority of sports, no.It is not to say that if you are slow you are no good, just My 2 cents…
All I’m saying is that will all the hours of training that I put in I ain’t letting no pompous primadonna beating me in MY sport! Bring it on! Grrr
They still have to train as a sprinter to run these times. They can’t get it from anywhere else.
I have mixed feelings about this topic.
After watching the popular ‘Superstars’ series here in the UK, in which sports stars of many disciplines compete against each other in a series of events- one of which is a 100 metre sprint, I would have to say that I doubt anyone in the premiership could run under 10.7 seconds. Many stars who look fast in their sports posted surprisingly poor times. For example, Tony Underwood was one of the fastest wingmen in the world in rugby, yet he posted something like an 11.6 sprint. Henry Olanga the Zimbabwean cricketer posted an 11.3. Even 400m sprinters Iwan Thomas and Jamie Baulch only posted times in the late 10s. Most guys were posting times in the early 12s which is how it should be I suppose, since they aren’t sprinters.
People have no idea how fast sprinters actually are. Only when you see them race non- sprinters do you realise just how quick they are. Simon Thomas, the BBC childrens tv presenter, entered a professional indoor 60m against Jason Gardner and sprinters of that calibre for charity and he had been trained for 6 weeks by Linford Christie. This guy is a very good recreational athlete. He ran the London marathon in 3 hours 15 minutes, and he looks very toned in a ‘posey’ kind of way, so he wasn’t carrying much bodyfat. The sprinters made him look like he was walking- literally. I was amazed at the distance they created from him. It looked about 20 metres. He ran 7.8 seconds. They were up about 3 metres within the first 10.
Another example is when Linford Christie and the ‘fast’ rugby union star, Jonah Lomu, had a ‘race’ as part of the publicity for the commonwealth games in Manchester in 2002. Linford had been retired for some time, and Lomu was still active. It was over about 60 metres. Linford looked like he was smiling and jogging for most of the race, whilst Lomu took it very seriously sprinting all out and looked stupid compared to how relaxed Linford was. Linford used NO arm movement at all for the first 50 metres, never actually looking straight ahead, instead smiling at the determined effort put out by Lomu. It was a complete joke for him as he jogged along side Lomu. In the last 10 metres Linford looked ahead and let his hands and feet go in a quick powerful burst and he immediately put a few metres between them. There is a HUGE difference between sprinters and just fast sportsmen.
Saying that, the rugby star, Martin Offiah, who was at one time the fastest man in rugby league in the Uk, supposedly beat the 200 metre sprinter Ade Mafe in a sprint ON GRASS across a rugby pitch, again in aid of some charity. The photos are in Offiah’s autobiography.
I remember when Tony Daley was the fastest man in English League football about 15 years ago. Football people were making out that he was probably the fastest man in the country and all that baloney, saying that he could ‘easily’ :eek: become an Olympic standard sprinter. Linford said in the newspapers that if it were true he should come and race against the big boys at the national athletic championships and prove his point. Of course he never did. A big fish in a very small pond springs to mind. Daley looked like lightening on the pitch, but of course the guys he was leaving for dead were probably in the late 11s and early 12s for sprinting speed. Any 10.6 second sprinter could look equally as fast against such competition. I would be very surprised if Daley was capable of running under 10.6 seconds.
Footballer’s alleged sprint times are mainly bullshit.
A very good post there. I guess it draws the line on this topic. I fully agree with every single word you said. It takes me nothing to beat anyone else who is not a sprinter that it always gives me the feeling that these guys arn’t doing anything during training! But again. The answer is specifity. They train for a specific thing and we train for another, so we can’t compare training.
Very good post…yep underlines what i’ve said and protested! These guys don’t have a winni the pooh (clue) about the jard work involved in shaving tenths and hundreths of time…This has been cemented to me but comments made to me by footballers when they ask what times am I running…When I mention that in training I’m running 10.7 and in comp FAT 10.8’s they reply with: " Wow!Thats awesome…you’re only 1 sec away from the world record…"
That comment along with the infamous “I’m as fast as you” are legendary.
i say let them walk the walk. i used to say all the time, i could go head to head with our fastest sprinter(doesnt do anything, recently got faster after a little strength training, 10.9). He kept telling me no way, so one day I said lets go for 30m. The kid calling the race said he couldnt tell who won. But again, the further you get out the faster these guys get. Thats why I’m around 2-3m behind when we run 55m, he runs 6.3.
Sprinting & Soccer, Apples & Oranges. Of course a pro soccer player couldn’t compete with a sprinter, your just stating the obvious. Here is another obvious one, sprinters have the endurance of a slug.
You said Simon Thomas ran the London in 3 hours 15 mins, What can Jason Gardner run it in???, yeah that is what I thought to… I really don’t give much respect to sprinters over the endurance guys, lifting/lifting heavy weights is quite easy, but developing great endurance, another world, especially in terms of mind and guts. I have worked out if Simon Thomas can run a 3:15, I’d say, Pound 4 Pound, Simon Thomas is around 9x quicker than Garder over any distance.
Also lets keep in mind (especially if you want to become a complete soccer player), endurance is one of the names of the game.