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Tactics TFC's Tactical Autopsy Thread

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Ranked: Of Europe's 96 top-flight clubs, which cover the most ground the fastest?

Can covering too much ground explain teams running out of gas? We rank every team in the Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 by how much they sprint.
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1. Tottenham Hotspur 2.98 kilometers per 90 minutes​

The wildest thing about this number is that Tottenham have only one player in the top 25 in the Premier League for total distance covered while sprinting: Dejan Kulusevski, 9.42 kilometers, 22nd most.

They came out of the gates on fire, everyone got injured, and then all the new guys kept running, too.

You can draw all kinds of conclusions from stats like these, and I do think a lot of Tottenham's injuries this season were bad luck rather than being caused by their breakneck pace.

I also do think that getting your players to sprint more than everyone else is a competitive advantage -- were it actually possible.

Marcelo Bielsa famously once said, "If players weren't human, I'd never lose." Ange Postecoglou seems to think that way, too.

2. AFC Bournemouth 2.89 kilometers​

Again, I wouldn't view this data in a vacuum to come up with absolute takeaways, but it's probably not a coincidence that the two teams at the top of these rankings both seem like they ran out of gas.

After breaking into the Champions League places over the winter, Bournemouth have won just one of their past 10 across all competitions.

4. Liverpool 2.83 kilometers​

Liverpool's decline in form has been a bit overstated.

They've won more Premier League points than anyone else in both the first and second halves of the season, and they got knocked out of the Champions League by PSG on penalties.

They also just pummeled Leicester over the weekend, even though none of the shots went in until late:

But they still haven't been quite as good as they were before the calendar flipped to 2025.

The big difference, I think, is just that they haven't been able to access that higher gear that they got to so often in the first half of the season when they simply blew their opponents off the field.

Maybe some of that comes down to all the running?

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10. Barcelona 2.68 kilometers​

Last season, Barcelona ranked sixth in LaLiga for sprint distance.

This season, they rank 10th in all of Europe.

Behold, the Hansi Flick effect.

But also, beware: Can they keep this up for another month?

Oh, and if you're looking for more Raphina-for-Ballon d'Or propaganda: his 11.44 kilometers sprinted are more than any other player in LaLiga.
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27. Atlético Madrid 2.42 kilometers​

Diego Simeone's team covers the most ground of any team in LaLiga -- by a wide margin. Atlético average 103.14 kilometers per match, while no other team averages more than 101.32. It's nothing new, either. They've ranked either first or second in distance covered in each of the past two seasons, too.

36. Woolwich 2.34 kilometers​

And here we enter the Champions League semifinal sweet spot.

With Woolwich, Inter Milan and PSG, all three clubs average somewhere between 2.34 and 2.32 kilometers of sprinting per game.

I could try to argue that these numbers show us that (A) these clubs have access to an elite level of running output, but (B) they haven't worn themselves out by getting there that often.

That might be true -- and I do think these very different tactical sides are similar in how they're comfortable across a few different modes of play -- but Manchester City and Real Madrid aren't too far away from here, either, and they're both having their worst seasons of the decade.

37. Internazionale 2.33 kilometers​

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65. Bayern Munich 2.19 kilometers​

I don't quite know what to make of this, but despite landing quite low on these rankings, Bayern and Borussia Dortmund (nine spots below) ranked first and second for sprint distance in the Champions League this season.

On the one hand, you'd think there might be a physical advantage later in the season to not having to hit top speed so often in your domestic league. On the other hand, both teams got dumped out of the Champions League quarters by teams that run way more in their domestic leagues.
 
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