I was watching the Germany-Netherlands match on ESPN today, and I noticed that they had a "km" statistic which popped up underneath the score and the "Time of Possession" statistic. The number for Germany was around 45.7 km and for the Netherlands it was around 48.5 km. I assume that this "km" statistic measures the distance which the ball has traveled as each team is passing it back and forth, and advancing it down the pitch? Seems like a kind of silly stat. If anyone can fully explain it to me and its significance I would appreciate it. If a midfielder boots it backwards to a fullback, does the distance which the ball travels in /during that pass "count" toward that team's "km" statistic, despite the fact that the ball was traveling backwards and not advancing toward the opposing team's goal?
It is the distance covered by the players. Not sure if the players are "chipped" or software programs are used, but it is common in the big tournaments to see this stat. In the last WC, not only was there a stat that showed distance covered by each player, but also a stat that described the amount of time a player spent at low effort, medium effort and high effort.
Chris, so it is just a measurement of how far each player has actually run up and down the field? So when I saw the statistic: Germany- KM 43.5 that just meant that all of Germany's players had run 43.5 km at that point in the game? Is that correct?
Yes, I am pretty sure. Field players will typically run ~ 8 - 10 KM in match. I believe that stat was shown just before the half. GK's don't put in the same kind of distance and pull the average down a bit so 43.5 km sounds about right.
In a tournament where players are playing on short rest the amount a player, or a team collectively, runs in a match will attribute greatly to fatigue late in the match or in subsequent matches. If Ronaldo ran 12Km in his last match while Xavi only ran 8km Xavi would be less fatigued and thus have an edge over Ronaldo. The same could be applied to teams collectively of course. Obviously this is an important statistic for coaches and analysts attempting to devise strategies and predictions but why would the average fan watching at home care about this? Betting. Anything to get an edge.
It matters in tournaments. In hindsight, the USA's collapse in the second half of the 2009 Confederations Cup final should have been predictable; the players covered significantly more distance than any other team through the first four games of the tournament.
As everyone has said above it is the km's covered usually per player in England. Opta cover it here in the UK for English Premiership games. I don't know the specifics of it but I know they have analysts watching the games and other analysts inputting the data (in the same way that Champion data do it for the AFL in Australia). It's been used to justify certain players credentials (e.g. it was used quite a lot in defence of James Milner during Euro 2012 - e.g. "James Milner he runs more on average than most players..... etc - he is worth his place in the starting line up"). I expect that if you were to get hold of a decent data set (e.g. good luck with that - I can't imagine that's the kind of data that is just stuck online) you could probably run a worthwhile regression analysis and figure out what it contributed to in terms of a dependent variable.
To some degree, yes. But this is because teams compensate for inferior technical ability by running harder. This is why, in cup matches between professional and amateur teams, the pros tend to score most of their goals in the second half. The amateurs can compensate for inferior skill for a while, but they end up getting exhausted faster. Also, note that Spain almost always covers much less distance than its opponents. That said, you have to look at the "km" statistic differently for teams and individual players. For individual players, the "km" statistic is probably a positive, because it means the players can run all day, and players who run more are not necessarily less skilled. But teams that lose the ball force their players to run more, so the statistic is a negative when viewed over the entire team. Again the US Confederations Cup team is instructive: Dempsey and Bradley were among the most skilled players on the team, but were forced to run as much as they did because teammates like Bornstein couldn't keep the ball.
Sort of. Filed under "it takes a lot of work to make something look easy" is the fact that in WC 2010, Xavi covered the most distance out of all players and Xabi was 6th. There were 21 other players that played 7 matches and 12 of those players had more minutes than Xavi. This is very simplistic way of looking at it but even if you look at players ( at least 3 matches played) who covered the most distance/minute , Xavi and Xabi are right up there at the top (just behind Michael Bradley but just ahead of Landon Donovan). I'm not saying Spain covered more distance than the US, but it is a mistake to think that Spain is just a bunch of skilled players without very high fitness levels.
And I'm not saying Spain lacks fitness. As a team, they run less, but that's only because they can. I'm not questioning the work rate of Xavi and Xabi Alonso as individuals. What I'm saying is that, for individuals, distance covered often says something about work rate, but for a team, covering more distance than the opposition is probably a negative.