The “hydration breaks” that have been added to World Cup matches have not been met with universal acclaim from players and fans, not least because some TV networks are using them to squeeze in extra ads.
It’s hot in much of North America in June, and in some places very hot. So it would seem natural that players at the World Cup, currently underway in the United States, Mexico and Canada, get quick breaks to grab a drink in the middle of each half.
But the pauses have not been broadly popular. Beside annoyance over the extra ads, fans are upset that the flow of the game is interrupted, and some believe that the team they are rooting for can somehow lose “momentum” as a result of the break.
Soccer is traditionally a free-flowing game. Each half is scheduled for 45 minutes, and there are only quick stops, after a goal or when the ball goes out of bounds, for example.
But concern over the players’ health has led in recent years to stoppages for them to get water. Notably, at last summer’s Club World Cup in the United States, referees at their discretion would allow for water breaks. In December, FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, decided to make the breaks more regular and consistent.
At this World Cup, halfway into each half, the referee blows the whistle, and players trundle over to the sideline for a three-minute drink break.
For consistency, there are no exceptions, even in cases of cooler weather, or rain. The breaks are even taken in air-conditioned domed stadiums.
Some fans at the games, apparently hoping for more nonstop action, have booed the breaks. Others have complained on social media.
Fans from outside the United States note that the breaks have essentially made soccer a game of four quarters instead of two halves — more like American football, they hint darkly.
Players and coaches have not all embraced the innovation either. “I don’t like it,” Mauricio Pochettino, the U.S. coach, told reporters. “I only like it when the conditions are extreme, but when the conditions are good, it is unnecessary.”
The Dutch star Virgil van Dijk was among the players who said he did not like the extra breaks.
Some television channels around the world have made the breaks even more annoying to fans by using the pauses to insert commercials, normally a no-no except at halftime.
Fox, which has the English-language rights to the Cup in the United States, is putting in ads, but Telemundo, the Spanish-language outlet, is not. Fox and Telemundo did not immediately reply to requests for comment on their decisions.
Some teams may have benefited from the breaks. Brazil’s coach, Carlo Ancelotti, acknowledged that he made tactical adjustments during the first-half break that helped his team to rally to tie after being 1-0 down against Morocco on Saturday.
Another concern for some is the unquantifiable notion of momentum.
Goals have sometimes been scored soon after a hydration break (just as they can be scored at any time, of course). And when they are, fans of the other team have complained that their “momentum” was somehow broken. (Of course it’s impossible to know if the goal would have been scored even without a break.)
In the England-Croatia game on Wednesday in a domed stadium near Dallas, Croatia tied the score at 1 not too long after the first-half hydration break, leading to calls that the break had stymied England’s mojo.
Those claims got a lot quieter after England pulled away to win, 4-2.
