Football / Soccer Standards

Professional standards

At professional level, football conditioning is usually tracked with a testing battery rather than a single pass/fail number. That battery often includes:

• Intermittent endurance: Yo-Yo intermittent recovery tests (IR1 / IR2) or similar shuttle + recovery protocols.
• Repeat sprint ability: multiple short sprints with limited rest.
• Speed and acceleration: 10–30m sprint measures.
• Strength and power: gym-based benchmarks (club-specific).

That does not mean the bleep test is “wrong”. It can still be useful for baseline aerobic capacity, especially in large groups. It is simply not the only (or primary) standard used in many professional environments.

Academy requirements

Academies often test more frequently than first teams, but the format depends on the organisation. Some academies use the bleep test because it is easy to administer across age groups, while others use Yo-Yo tests so that test demands align with match-style stop-start running.

When you hear a coach ask “what bleep test level for football?”, the real answer is: the required level (if any) is set internally and should be measured against the exact audio track and course length your academy uses.

Position differences

Football is not one uniform physical job. Position, tactical role, and playing style change match running demands, and that tends to show up in endurance test results:

• Midfield roles: often involve higher continuous movement and repeated efforts, so endurance scores are frequently a focus.
• Wide players and full-backs: commonly perform repeated high-speed efforts and recovery, so intermittent tests can be especially relevant.
• Centre-backs: still need a strong aerobic base, but acceleration, strength, and repeated short efforts can be more limiting than pure endurance.
• Goalkeepers: have very different energy demands; endurance scores are generally interpreted differently than outfield players.

Premier League benchmarks

There is no single public “Premier League bleep test pass mark” published across clubs. Clubs and leagues keep internal performance standards, and they also change with coaching staff and sport science practice.

What is publicly measurable is how elite professional players perform in commonly used tests. For example, published data from elite football groups using the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 2 reports higher scores in higher-level players and clear differences between goalkeepers and outfield roles.

Example: Yo-Yo IR2 distances reported in an elite football cohort

Group	Yo-Yo IR2 distance (mean)
International elite players	~1059m
Moderate elite players	~771m
Goalkeepers (position example)	~628m

This table is included as an example of how elite programmes often benchmark intermittent tests. It is not a universal pass mark and it is not a classic bleep test score.

Youth levels

For youth players, a “good” endurance score is the one that improves steadily while keeping the player healthy and available for training. Over-testing is a common mistake: frequent maximal bleep tests can increase fatigue and reduce training quality.

A practical youth approach is:

• Test occasionally (for example, once per training block).
• Use the same test version every time (20m bleep test, 15m bleep test, Yo-Yo IR1, etc.).
• Track improvement against the player’s own previous score and squad norms.

Related: the Yo-Yo test page explains why football often uses intermittent tests, and the levels chart helps you interpret classic bleep test results.

Key points

• Clubs often use Yo-Yo tests, not just bleep tests
• Benchmarks vary by position and level
• Public “Premier League pass marks” are rare
• Use consistent test versions for comparisons

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