Covering Distance in the Champions League
People love the idea of physical data but it's hard to come by. Let's look at Liverpool's distance covered stats in Europe this season.
A lot of football fans don’t care about a lot of football metrics. Who can blame them? Who’s bothered about tackles or pass completion or possession regains when football is solely about winning the six-yard scrum on a corner?
One thing that seems to generate interest is physical data, at least based on tweets I’ve received over the years. People want to know who ran the furthest or the fastest. Is there anyone who failed to put in the hard yards who we can blame for the latest defeat?
I think the clamour for these statistics is why Josh Williams chose the handle Distance Covered. Fans want the numbers without necessarily understanding how to interpret them. Running stats are viewed as the answer to solving football when the numbers that drip out into the public domain are usually shorn of context. The possession share and the game state are just two factors that affect how far or how fast a player has to run.
We at least know Jürgen Klopp would set his team a collective target. Players from both Mainz and Dortmund revealed what the German demanded ahead of him taking over at Liverpool.
“In his first year he said he wouldn't guarantee anything apart from that when we reached 120km per game then it would be much harder for us to lose,” said Patrick Owomoyela, who played under Klopp at Dortmund. “He actually offered us a day off when we reached that target. He thought that if we reached that then we would win the game. And from then on it became easy because we understood that his plan would work.”
Klopp may have dialled down his benchmark in later years. Squawka revealed after his final campaign in England that the Reds had averaged 111.3km per Premier League game in 2023/24.
Sports scientist Simon Brundish recently noted that “across his final three seasons, Liverpool averaged around 116 kilometres per match,” suggesting Klopp’s last dance may have been the most restrained one. He did look exhausted, in fairness.
There’s clearly no correlation with success. Burnley went down with a whimper two seasons ago despite topping the above chart while Aston Villa (who were 20th for distance covered) unexpectedly finished fourth. Run smarter, not harder?
Arne Slot appears to think so. A Sky Sports article from February 2025 on Nottingham Forest included the Premier League distance covered per game figures for last season to that point. The Reds had eased off compared with the preceding campaign, though maybe that was just a result of having to chase far fewer matches. Liverpool were more often able to play on their terms.
Fotmob proudly announced ahead of 2025/26 that they would be carrying physical data this season. Then they withdrew it, at least for the Premier League. However, the Champions League statistics remain available. With Liverpool returning to the competition next week, it’s a good time to run through some distance numbers. Sprints will be covered in the next edition of the newsletter.
