Football Cliches

[PaulP]

I think that the meaning is clear but how does one run if not on top of the ground?

Unless it’s muddy of course, as in Kruddler’s example.

“Swimming on top of the water” makes more sense; the faster you go, the less water you displace.  Of course, if you’re a Basilisk lizard, you can “run on top of the water”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFWynzID1Ao

Fair enough. Idiomatic words and phrases typically tend to live apart from linguistic logic, so little point in approaching it from a logical angle IMO.

If you google that phrase, basically nothing comes up. Its origins are probably like much of folklore, i.e not possible to identify a single source or origin.