The Importance of Stamina in football.

when thinking about footballers who have stamina, most people would think of N'Golo Kante. He is a player who is known for being able to play at such high intensity for the whole duration of a game. Although being very fit does not mean you will be a very good footballer, it does definitely help a lot.

As we can see in this heat map, Kante almost covered the whole central width of the pitch and as you know a premier league pitch is big. This would positively affect the team as Kante would be stopping the opposition from having space, because he is in the way. Not only is he affecting the game positively when defending, but also when attacking. Due to Kante's fitness being so good , he can help the team going forward as well. The heat map shows how he is literally box to box, a role that requires very high fitness levels.

What I notice with a lot of players is that they are performing at 8+ out of 10 for the first 60 minutes of a game, however towards the end of the game, as expected, fatigue sets in and performance levels drop. If individuals could keep their performance levels above 8 during the last 30 minutes then the chance of the team winning is more likely. Being fitter than your opponents means that you will be able to out perform the opposition, thus theoretically outscoring them.

Although this is quite obvious, many players avoid doing fitness exercises because lets be honest it is boring and also challenging. However one exercise I recommend is this one. (No clue of the name). This is an exercise of high intensity and also for a long period. Warning, you will definitely feel sick at the end. As the diagram shows, sprint to each cone and then back to the start. This is obviously one of many possible drills you can do.