ABSTRACT
The work-rate profile of a football player ranges between low-level activities like walking, jogging, and those of high intensity like sprinting. The final outcome of a match may be dependent upon a player’s ability to perform a sprint faster than an opponent. Despite the fact that sprinting in a game represents less than 10% of total distance covered (Bangsbo et al., 1991), this performance is considered as one of the most critical. Available research has shown that professional players are faster than non-professional players over distances ranging from 5 to 40 m (Davis et al., 1992; Kollath and Quade, 1993). Additionally, in top class players the inter-player performance variation with these distances is very small, raising difficulties for the measurement and evaluation of this fitness component. For example, Balsom (1994) recorded sprint times from the Swedish National team performed on grass and measured with photoelectric cells over a course of 15 m and results ranged from 232-2.38 s.
