Five extra minutes of effective playing time can add almost 3 km of collective running. But that physical cost is far from identical across LALIGA teams—and high-speed running tells a very different story. This analysis explores how Effective Playing Time shapes match demands, why possession...
Around 82% of movement time and 72% of total distance in elite football occur below 14 km/h. The difference between these two figures reveals not only how players move, but also where much of football performance is actually produced. High-speed running and sprinting dominate many discussions...
Return to competition protocolDescarga A player can be medically cleared, train with the squad, be available for selection and even play minutes… while still not being back to his real competitive level. That is the starting point of this protocol. The key question is not simply: Can he play? The...
There is a part of football that still escapes most data. Not the pass.Not the shot.Not the sprint.Not the tackle. The movement before all that. The adjustment before receiving.The run that opens a passing lane.The pause that holds an opponent.The step away from the ball that creates space.The...
Introducing LALIGA’s Team Context Adjustment Model (TCAM) With only one matchday remaining in the 2025/26 LALIGA EA SPORTS season, recruitment departments across professional football are already immersed in one of the most decisive moments of the year: building next season’s squad. Every summer, clubs compare hundreds of players...
Last Thursday, during a guest lecture I gave at Stanford University’s “Science of MythBusters” course, we explored how scientific reasoning helps test long-standing beliefs by confronting them with rigorous data rather than intuition.A newly published study provides a clear example of this approach applied to...