They’re just conserving energy for France, right?
Statistics don’t always truly reflect football but the Republic of Ireland players will be hopeful that work rate-mad Roy Keane doesn’t get a hold of the statistical breakdown of the Euro 2016 group stages.
As the round of 16 gets underway in France, Uefa have published some interesting stats about the best and worst performers, on paper, of the past fortnight.
The figures show that Martin O’Neill’s men actually ran less than 22 of the 24 teams who competed in the opening round, with only Albania clocking up fewer metres.
Ireland players ran a total of 308,019 metres in their three Group E games which is quite a bit less than the 337,179 m run by Italy, who top the list. But who won when those teams met, eh?
The running figures aren’t truly a representation of quality as sides like Russia, Czech Republic and Ukraine are all in the top 10 of runners but all finished bottom of their respective groups.
Other interesting stats involving the Republic of Ireland include the fact that they were topped only by Romania when it came to committing fouls in the group stage and that the boys in green are in a group of four teams to have progressed to the knockout stages with just two goals scored; alongside Poland, Switzerland and Northern Ireland.
