Why do they have to run those 6 miles in 90 sprints of the same length? They're running back and forth, in reaction to the ball. So I'm sure they very rarely run corner to corner, but if they have to run 10 yards in this direction, 20 in that, 15 in a new direction, 50 towards the goal, etc, it can definitely add up.
Running 6 miles in 90 minutes, with a 20 minute break (which makes it 110 minutes), is not that big of a deal. It's like walking at ~3.5 mph on a treadmill for 110 minutes. Running 6 miles doesn't really sound all that impressive when you break down the time and the average mph.
that makes it sound wussy when an NBA player gets tired playing 42 minutes during a 48 minute game with a lot of stops in the action.
It's 4 MPH continuously for the 90 minutes. If that's all they were doing, it wouldn't be impressive for elite athletes, but they're also playing the game. Dribbling, tackling, jumping and bodying for position. Hockey, basketball and soccer are all strenuous games, they just are paced differently and the number of breaks reflect it. Soccer players are going the slowest (in terms of energy burned), but take virtually no breaks except at half time. Basketball players probably expend more energy per minute and take more breaks (counting both timeouts and bench time). Hockey players expend the most and are forced to take the most breaks. Football and baseball are completely different games (and I wouldn't say baseball is strenuous at all except for catchers) so are hard to compare to those three, which are more of the "perpetual movement" sports.
going back a bit: PapaG, are your girls at an age where soccer is still a mob of kids running around, or can you break out skill-wise? I watched a couple of my nieces' games (slightly younger than your girls) and it looked a lot like the picture above. I couldn't tell if my nieces were the best, worst, most uncoordinated or fastest...just that one of them stopped for a few minutes to pick up grass off the field and wave at us.
My 2nd-grader is at the age where skills are separated and the girls can be coached. My daughter pretty much always played striker/forward, although she was only the second-best girl on the team. The best player basically played mid-field, because the coach wanted to develop her all-around game. The coach actually thinks my daughter will be a solid offensive mid-fielder, but he wanted to give her a nose for the goal this year, which she developed over the year, scoring a few goals out of 5 on the team/game. My kindergartner plays mob ball. She's agressive, though, so she was one of the kids always breaking away with the ball and scoring. My 2nd-grader lacked that instinct until she was told to do it by her coach.
