Abstract Background Substitutions are generally used to promote the match performance of the whole team. This study aimed to analyze the performance of substitute players and explore the performance difference among substitute players, completed players, and replaced players across each position. Methods Chinese Super Soccer League (CSL) matches in the season 2018 including 5871 individual observation from 395 professional soccer players were analyzed by establishing linear mixed models to quantify the performance difference among substitute players (SP) (n = 1,071), entire match players (EMP) (n = 3,454), and replaced players (RP) (n = 1,346), and then separately for each position (central defenders, fullbacks, central midfielders, wide midfielders, and attackers). Results The results show SP display higher high intensity distance and sprint distance significantly (p
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