I just learnt that the English Premier league goes for 40 weeks a year. In other words they only have 12 weeks for the rest of the year. AFL seems to have 13 weeks off (for the 10 non-finalists) and also a pre- season. Maybe I'm a little off topic but do the English soccer teams have a preseason? Surely their required levels of fitness are not hugely less than in AFL. Oh and if we ever try to have every team play each other twice we would have a similarly long season with the same questions I'm asking here.

As I understand it, the round ball game never really stops. Between Premier, Champions, National representation and a few gap fillers, a top level footballer is more often stuck to choose between competing fixtures than to have time off.

Fortunately for them, soccer has a more narrow range of physical demands, and each individual game isn't anywhere near as taxing as top level Australian football.

52 minutes ago, Little Goffy said:

As I understand it, the round ball game never really stops. Between Premier, Champions, National representation and a few gap fillers, a top level footballer is more often stuck to choose between competing fixtures than to have time off.

Fortunately for them, soccer has a more narrow range of physical demands, and each individual game isn't anywhere near as taxing as top level Australian football.

Hmm, I'd say you'd be right. If I'm not mistaken soccer pitches are a lot smaller and matches don't go as long etc meaning fitness demands are a little less exacting . Surely players still get a few weeks completely off and the preseasons hence are a fair bit shorter than AFL ones. I guess if there's nothing like the 9-10 weeks gap AFL players can have from September to November that soccer players never get too rusty or lose much base-level fitness. But if soccer preseasons are maybe 6 or 7 weeks shorter than AFL's would anywhere near as many players surprise as much with skills improvement between seasons? I'd love to know.

In the UK, the regular season starts mid August for the EFL clubs and finishes late April/early May. Pre season often starts mid June. A lot of the European continental leagues have a mid season break in December/January and there are also (I think) three international breaks where no domestic football is played in the top leagues.

I wonder if the AFL off season is traditionally so long because of the cricket?

36 minutes ago, 3183 Dee said:

In the UK, the regular season starts mid August for the EFL clubs and finishes late April/early May. Pre season often starts mid June. A lot of the European continental leagues have a mid season break in December/January and there are also (I think) three international breaks where no domestic football is played in the top leagues.

I wonder if the AFL off season is traditionally so long because of the cricket?

Surely it's not just tradition. Wouldn't some club some time experimented with a shorter AFL preseason and learnt the hard way those extra weeks weren't just tradition.

4-6 week pre-seasons in world game, depending on players playing in International tournaments and the like.

Most top clubs have an intense 2 week block where they have double sessions every 2nd day.

These training camps take place in exotic resorts in Spain, UAE, America or most recently even Australia.

These camps usually last up to ten day dependant on the clubs financial clout.

Whilst the AFL have gotten alot better compaired to the dark old days of the 70's, 80's and 90's the AFL pre seasons are generally to long.

Edited December 31, 2025Dec 31 by YesitwasaWin4theAges

3 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Hmm, I'd say you'd be right. If I'm not mistaken soccer pitches are a lot smaller and matches don't go as long etc meaning fitness demands are a little less exacting . Surely players still get a few weeks completely off and the preseasons hence are a fair bit shorter than AFL ones. I guess if there's nothing like the 9-10 weeks gap AFL players can have from September to November that soccer players never get too rusty or lose much base-level fitness. But if soccer preseasons are maybe 6 or 7 weeks shorter than AFL's would anywhere near as many players surprise as much with skills improvement between seasons? I'd love to know.

In some European leagues they take a 3 week break over the Christmas and New year period. An off season break for Premier League footballers is from mid may to mid/late June however as little Goffy mentioned top level players may have international duty with European Championship and World Cup every 4 years on an alternating 2 year gap. Those competitions are run during June and July.

So if your national team doesn’t qualify you will be off for a 4 week period over May and June, your pre season is highly likely to be overseas with friendly competitions mixed in with training camps.

The players on international duty over the offseason would still get a 3 to 4 week break but would have an individually tailored fitness programme

4 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

As I understand it, the round ball game never really stops. Between Premier, Champions, National representation and a few gap fillers, a top level footballer is more often stuck to choose between competing fixtures than to have time off.

Fortunately for them, soccer has a more narrow range of physical demands, and each individual game isn't anywhere near as taxing as top level Australian football.

I partially disagree with this statement. Whilst there is no need for soccer players to be overly muscular in the upper body as there is not an element of 'grappling' and high impact collisions, the athletic profile is still very demanding. They cover similar mileage to AFL players and likely have more explosive / sprinting elements than AFL. Also the field size is a bit of a misnomer as Soccer fields 8 less players (not counting goal keeper) and doesn't have an interchange bench the same way that footy does. Id have to look at stats regarding the stop/start nature, but its likely a little more than AFL with fouls, throw-in's, goal-kicks etc.

For the top european clubs, they also have to balance league and UEFA orientated competitions and national comps which place huge demands on key players - so recovery is super important.

From what i can recall, pro soccer players in Europe typically have 4-6 weeks off then hit preseason for about 2 months before launching into the season again. however with the increase in additional competitions they are starting even sooner with World Cup years basically eating into the preseason time all together.

I have always held the belief that Footy more closely resembles the demands of NFL than it does of Soccer.. I think they have it easier than Soccer in the sense of time-off / time away from club etc.

It's a 38 game season in the EPL. But these fixtures are interspersed with Champions League competition (for the qualifiers from the previous season), the FA Cup and the EFL Cup, plus international duties for certain players.

The key difference between football and footy is the contact nature of footy. I believe the aerobic requirements of modern footy also trump football (marginally), and there's more rest moments in a game of football.

In other words, they're not entirely comparable. You just have to be physical and mentally fit for football, whereas footy has the physicality and contact that football doesn't.

4 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

As I understand it, the round ball game never really stops. Between Premier, Champions, National representation and a few gap fillers, a top level footballer is more often stuck to choose between competing fixtures than to have time off.

Fortunately for them, soccer has a more narrow range of physical demands, and each individual game isn't anywhere near as taxing as top level Australian football.

NFL in my opinion take the bigger hits as the players are generally more powerful but their players play every 2 weeks.

I still reckon the Rugby League has the toughest schedule out of all codes as far a recovery, demands of the game are concerned especially around Origin time.

The game of AFL has been cleaned up that much that the hits are less prevalent than those of other codes.

Plus the game scheduling of the AFL is so manufactured its not a traditional Home and Away competition as Clubs don't have their own home grounds.

Travelling time for some clubs is very limited and for others is very taxing Freo and West Coke so their is alot of things that have to be take into consideration (yes im talking about you Colingwood and Geelong)

World Football i would have to say has the most demanding of schedules at the top level it is quiet literally a marathon at the very top.

Players from Chelsea who started this season off have competed in a FIFA Club World Cup competition that lasted a Month they won the competition.

It must be mentioned that whilst not every player plays every game there would be a handful that will go very close.

They had a condensed pre season to my knowledge lasted 2-3 weeks, the are currently competing in every competition in England e.g FA Cup and League Cup and in Europe e.g Champions League.

Their players half way through the season christmas period are starting to show signs of complete exhaustion.

Whilst the very top clubs have academy players to call upon if the clubs injury list gets excessive the sheer number of games for a club like Chelsea is completely ridiculous.

If they make all the finals in these competitions they are looking at a 70 game plus season and this ain't no NBA or MLB type arrangement.

Also factor in the FIFA World Cup most of Chelsea's players will be participating in with their countries.

If a couple of them are lucky enough that's another 8 games to play in so they will be well in need of a break mentally and physically.

It's not unusual for the best sides to be playing 60 games a season depending how deep they go in their domestic and European cup competitions. That's three games a week for most of the season. Every two years there's also either the European Championships (Euros) or a World Cup for those players that make their native country's squad. Lots of international travel as well. The lower divisions south of the border play 46 regular games plus playoffs. It's probably why I find it hard to wrap my head around a 23 game + finals AFL season as being 'long'.

We played Motherwell on Saturday just gone, St Mirren this morning and play the Tims at the Piggery at lunch time this Saturday. Connor Barron covered 16km in the game on the weekend so we rested him today and hooked Soapy Souttar and Chermiti early when it looked like the game was won. Player management and squad rotation is really important. Maybe the best person to compare the two codes is Darren Burgess.

56 minutes ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

It's not unusual for the best sides to be playing 60 games a season depending how deep they go in their domestic and European cup competitions. That's three games a week for most of the season. Every two years there's also either the European Championships (Euros) or a World Cup for those players that make their native country's squad. Lots of international travel as well. The lower divisions south of the border play 46 regular games plus playoffs. It's probably why I find it hard to wrap my head around a 23 game + finals AFL season as being 'long'.

We played Motherwell on Saturday just gone, St Mirren this morning and play the Tims at the Piggery at lunch time this Saturday. Connor Barron covered 16km in the game on the weekend so we rested him today and hooked Soapy Souttar and Chermiti early when it looked like the game was won. Player management and squad rotation is really important. Maybe the best person to compare the two codes is Darren Burgess.

Cmon the Bhoys,

The ability to recover from a football game vs AFL is in the impact.

Not saying football players wouldn’t be sore after a game they are with the kms covered but the general hits in AFL from shepherds and the bumps leave you requiring longer recovery periods.

I know in the old days (and still in the NRL) top players would play VFL/WAFL on a Saturday fly to Perth Saturday night Sunday morning for a State of Origin game on Tuesday and back it up again the following Saturday or play an Escort Cup game midweek, but I do not believe that is possible for today’s players.

AFL has developed massively in the last 30 years with the increased speed, power running and science behind players strength and explosive power base that the velocity in a hit or bump now is huge.

Football on the other hand IMO has reduced the physical nature of their game in terms of tackling etc. Sides no longer play domestic league, cup and European campaigns with squads of 16 across those tournaments. The squads in Europe are massive and they have the ability to rest players on the bench in a break glass in case of emergency mode

7 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Surely their required levels of fitness are not hugely less than in AFL.

Maybe not hugely less aerobically, but in every other fitness marker, definitely hugely less.

Edited December 31, 2025Dec 31 by Ethan Tremblay

I though a Burgess type person said AFL was much fitter and soccer was much more skillful.

FWIW I played both sports - re Soccer, i represented the country. Played footy for a very successful EFL club.

Personally I found footy pre-seasons much harder, but I found game day soccer aerobically harder than game day footy.

This topic got my attention enough to go digging around, but I've mostly come up with just trivia and curiosities.

Assoc Football has an enormous number of sprint actions, above 50 per game per player. Compared to 10-20 as the best estimate I found for AFL. On the other hand, there's a difference in how sustained those sprints might be. An AFL player's sprints could be over 50m, while that would just look silly on a soccer pitch.

AFL players cover similar or slightly more total distance in a ~120 minute game compared to the 90 minutes of soccer.

The ball is out of play for 1/3rd of the time in an AFL game, and almost half the time in soccer. Resetting field position is also much more demanding in AFL on account of double the total playing field size. (See the new ruck rule, for example)

NFL timekeeping is weird and the rapid set-play and reset structure of the game means almost every play is done at full freshness. Hence the frankly obese but immensely powerful scrimmage line players. There have been rare but genuine NFL games with less than one minute of total time with the ball actually in play!

To round it off, I'll finish with some data I just stumbled across, shared a few years ago by Topend sports.

World Cup players 2018

https://www.topendsports.com/sport/soccer/anthropometry-worldcup2018.htm

AFL Players 2012-2018 https://www.topendsports.com/sport/afl/anthropometry-position.htm

There's some interesting thoughts to brew there, for sure.

Edited December 31, 2025Dec 31 by Little Goffy

Soccer is tougher

Try a world cup qualifier....

One leg in the cold and then fly for twenty hours before another game in the heat and humidity two days later.

African Cup is on at present.... It's serious world class football

You'd be lucky to get 4 weeks off in the EPL. Earning £100,000 per week it's probably worth it