What is the meaning of the football cliche ‘a marathon not a sprint in football?
Marathon not a sprint
As we are at the start of the new football season, we can take a look at the cliche, ‘a marathon not a sprint‘. In athletics a sprint is a short race that is over fairly quickly, for example, the 100 metres takes about 9.5 seconds (if youa€™re Usain Bolt), while a marathon is over 42 kilometres and takes just over 2 hours. The Premier League in England involves 38 games and takes place over 9 months a€“ from August until May a€“ so a team has to perform consistently over a long period of time in order to be champions. This means it is more like a marathon than a sprint and teams that have not started very well can make up ground over the next few months. A marathon not a sprint
- Example: Managers try to calm their fans after a poor start to the season by reminding them that the league is a marathon not a sprint.
- Example: This is slightly different to the cliche ‘you can’t win the title in August but you can certainly lose it‘ which means that a fast start to the season is really important.
