Rome/Oslo (Netafsen): – People tell me “football players are really well coached”. I'm just laughing. I say they need to look more at what athletes do.
Former Premier League and England star Danny Mills, 47, told Netavicin earlier this week.
Mills is in Italy to follow his son George, who finished a strong second behind Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the 5,000m at the European Championships last Saturday.
In an interview with Netavicin, Father Mills pointed out that football players often complain about tight match schedules, and that “athletes live in a separate world compared to football players.”
Football requires a lot of effort, but athletics requires ten times more effort, said the retired footballer who played 19 international matches with the England national team.
Read also: Program of the European Athletics Championships 2024
Luckberg raises questions
NRK expert and Vikings player Christopher Luckberg tells Netafsen he's not a fan of comparing sports, because he believes the work demands are very different from one sport to another.
However, he questions many of Mills' statements.
-What does it mean to be a good coach? Are you good at running straight forward, fast and long? Being strong or lifting weights? Luckberg asks.
– Or can you get a better workout even if you only run eleven kilometers in 90 minutes, but that includes jumping games, sprinting and fencing? Or what about an ice hockey player or a handball player?
Mills established himself in English football in the mid-1990s, before retiring in 2008.
Read also: German European Championship stars in heated debate
Lockberg Mills' statements bear a sign of this.
– This perhaps attests to Mills himself competing in a slightly different time, with different physical work demands and a different professionalism than is required today, however, when he talks roughly about football. The complexity of football is that there aren't many other sports that excel at either, says Luckberg.
Professor: – All sports have requirements for their work
Among other things, Mills justifies his statements by the fact that you can be among the top 250 players in the world in football and play in the English Premier League, while in order to assert yourself in running, you must be among the top ten players in the world.
Stig Arve Sæther is Professor of Sports Science at NTNU.
It is believed Mills wants to be a bit provocative with his comments, but there may be some substance to what the former Premier League profile says.
Read also: For the first time we have numbers about this in Norway. The TV file shook with what appeared
– Of course he has a good point regarding the number who play in the Premier League compared to the small number allowed to compete in the European Union in athletics. So the best of the best are exposed to extreme demands, Sather tells Netafcen.
– But that probably also makes him among the best ever in the Premier League. So you could say that Premier League players have more rivals because football is the biggest sport in the world in terms of number of players, so there is tougher competition for places.
Like Luckberg, he believes comparing sports is difficult — especially between team sports and individual sports.
– All sports have their working requirements related to mentality, physics, technique, strength and speed. To succeed at international level, you have to be among the best to reach the top, but in team sports you may have other qualities and skills that make up for the other qualities and skills that are missing, while you may have to be more complete and at least more complete. Of your opponents in athletics.
“Infuriatingly humble internet trailblazer. Twitter buff. Beer nerd. Bacon scholar. Coffee practitioner.”
