The science of football

By Ken Bray

The Beckhams' bash is over, Wayne's on the mend, and Sven's master plan is taking shape (we hope). But with only two and a half weeks to go until the World Cup, have the England team really grasped the football fundamentals? What do they know of free-kick trajectories, of passing permutations, of angular velocity? The game may be an art, but it's also a science - and as Ken Bray explains, every dug-out needs an Einstein

1. Fitness: the key ingredient

Ask any coach at the World Cup for the most important attribute of his team, and you'll get the answer "fitness". Technique is worthless if players can't sustain 90 minutes of hard competition or if they fade completely in extra time.

Not surprisingly, energy consumption is closely related to how far players run in a match, but for many years, this figure was a matter of guesswork. It took the precise measurements of two scientists, Thomas Reilly