Thread by @Scienceofsport

So…#russia have run the furthest of any team at this year’s #WorldCup18 triggering the inevitable discussion about the suspicion that would already have existed, given many suspicions. I wanted to share a few thoughts on this, so here’s a short thread...

First, whether or not there is doping in football is an unnecessary question. I don’t even understand why people discuss this as a “are they, aren’t they question”. This is as true of Russia as pretty much every team.

Second, had you asked for a prediction of distance run statistics to confirm that Russia were still guilty of systematic doping, you’d have come up with those numbers! However, that may also be circular, a form of confirmation bias. So there is nuance in that data I’d love to see

For one thing, historical comparisons would help, not only for global matches, but also for Russia in the last 12 months. Changes mean more than absolute numbers. Also, I’d love to see WHEN in the match the distance is created - is it spread uniformly, or does it drop off?

It needs to also be corrected for ball in play time, and perhaps most importantly of all, I’d like to see the data for how many sprints it involves, time spent at fast speeds, average recovery between those sprints, and work out a work/rest ratio so that you can quantify properly

One thing I don’t think team sports using GPS have gotten to grips with is the use of the data to evaluate physiological capacity in the same way that cycling or running use CP or CV. I think there’s a model for CV in football, where time spent above and below CV predict fatigue

And so if the distance is accumulated through slower & prolonged running over 90min, it means something different compared to if it is made up of more high intensity sprints, completed with shorter rest period (this is obvious). That’s the metric I think would be most interesting

Example of the problem with that high level summary of team distance: Colombia covered the least distance, but they played with 10 guys for almost 90 min. Do that figure doesn’t even account for such an obvious metric as average per person. The good stuff will be in the detail

As a prediction, if Russia complete more sprints, with shorter recoveries, covering more distance at high speed, all compared to historical values for themselves and others, within tactical reasons, it’s a much stronger case for doping than the 115km & 118km stat seen so far