When we look at how much distance a team covers in a match, it doesn't tell us much beyond, well, how much distance that team covered in that match.
Across Europe's Big Five top leagues this season, can you guess which team covers the most ground? Let me stop you right there -- you can't; the answer is FC Saint Pauli. Per data from PFF FC, manager Alexander Blessin gets his guys to move 104.84 kilometers every game.
You might, though, be able to guess which team moves the least. That would be Real Madrid, who cover 91.99 kilometers per game -- no one else in Europe is below 94 kilometers. While most top teams tend to cover less ground on average, Madrid covering so much less ground than everyone else helps explain some of their problems this season.
However, those numbers don't say anything about how the ground got covered. If you run a leisurely 5 miles or cover a half mile with intermittent 100-meter sprints, the latter is going to take a much bigger physical toll on your body even though the distance is significantly shorter. So, perhaps we can learn a little more about the European landscape by looking at how often everyone sprints.
PFF FC defines a sprint as any time when a player is moving at a speed of at least 25 kilometers per hour. Here's how all 96 first-division teams across England's Premier League, Spain's LaLiga, Italy's Serie A, Germany's Bundesliga and France's Ligue 1 stack up when we compare them by how much distance they cover while sprinting. We'll go from the teams covering the most ground to the least.
