England manager Thomas Tuchel uses a second-half hydration break to give his team instructions during its match against Croatia on Wednesday.Issei Kato/Reuters
The first formalized “cooling breaks” in the World Cup happened in Brazil in 2014. During a quarter-final between Mexico and Netherlands, temperatures rose into the middle 30s. During those three-minute stoppages, some Mexican players – all of them presumably used to a warm work environment – wrapped their heads in wet towels.
It broke with the spirit of the game, but it appeared necessary. Nobody thought to complain. That’s how they got the wedge in.
FIFA set a standard then for when a cooling break should occur – at the referee’s discretion, under the guidance of a medical officer, when temps rose to 32 C or above. It has been used sparingly since.
At this World Cup, what was an emergency measure has been regularized. Breaks occur in every match, at the midpoint of each half, regardless of how hot it is, or if the game is being played outside. All of a sudden, without any discussion, soccer has become a game of quarters. Was this a plan? If so, bravo.
It has nothing to do with player safety, though that’s FIFA’s fig leaf. The clue is in the nomenclature. Cooling breaks depend on a variable – weather conditions. Hydration breaks don’t. So if you’re McDonald’s, you can know exactly when your ad will run.
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It’s pure opportunism, which is FIFA’s superpower. If they could stamp a promo on the forehead of every spectator in the stadium, they would.
Being irritated about that is one thing. Being surprised is another. Soccer has tried ads on the field, in the stands, on the players and in the corner of the screen as the game goes on. Eventually, someone was going to cross this temporal red line.
What is interesting is the reaction inside the game – cautious, verging on measured.
“To debate this now is useless and only complicates things,” Carlos Queiroz, the Ghana coach and one of the most senior figures in the sport, has said.
Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo hydrates, while his team works on strategy during their second-half hydration break.Annegret Hilse/Reuters
Queiroz suggested discussing it later. Something tells me that if they were talking about playing with a beach ball instead of a soccer ball, he’d want to talk about it now.
Even the football pundits can’t bring themselves to get too worked up about FIFA’s switcheroo. It creates too many interesting conversational diversions for them.
Out of nowhere, this World Cup has become a sort of football laboratory. Traditionally, there is only one opportunity during a game to truly coach – during the half. Now there are three.
You don’t like the shape of the team? Get everyone together in the early going and change it. You can confer with your players in a normal tone of voice, rather than trying to transmit your ideas via amateur sign language while they stand 100 feet away from you.
One of the beauties of football is that, while it has structure, its best moments are unplanned. When Lionel Messi cuts through four opponents on his way toward goal, that’s instinct. Nobody drew it up for him. At this level, the head coach’s most important job is managing egos and the press, not spitting out tactics on demand.
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Well, maybe not any more. All of a sudden, football is a little less of an inspired player’s game, and a little more a supple manager’s game.
The way in which the rest of the tournament plays out will decide how the professionals feel about that. If the final is turned by some coaching tweak made during a second-half hydration break, an excuse is created.
Players may like the idea. What manual labourer wouldn’t want an extra breather? Ambitious coaches should like it, too. It pushes them to front of the stage. For obvious reasons, team owners will love it, but have to pretend it’s being done to them.
A few questions remain. Like, what about winter? Will games played in December need warming breaks rather than hydration ones? Or warming breaks plus hydration breaks? Will there be enough blankies to go around?
Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni worked on strategy with his players during a hydration break on Tuesday.Claudia Greco/Reuters
One stakeholder won’t get a say – fans. You don’t want to watch more ads? Well, how angry are you? Because you used to be able to watch a lot of these games for free. When they started charging for cable, you were angry then, too. But you’re still here. The people on top suspect you’ll get over it again.
You have to hand it to FIFA. They’ve been clever about this. Until Donald Trump wandered into frame, the big knock on this tournament was that it would be too hot. This was back when getting worked up about climate change elicited nods instead of eyerolls.
Where others saw a problem, FIFA saw a main chance. How do we fix this heat problem in a way that benefits us, while making it difficult for anyone to complain too loudly? Hydration breaks.
This is the same organization that, back in 1994, made Ireland play a World Cup game in 40 C temps. Ireland! I have those same gene markers. If I exit the house when it’s that hot, my skin temp alerts Siri to autodial an ambulance. If sponsorship dollars were at risk, FIFA would make teams play during a meteor storm.
However, using one of the great conversation-ending buzzwords of today – “safety” – FIFA has fundamentally altered the game. This real-time experiment is only superficially sporting. What it really is, is a honking zeppelin of a trial balloon.
It’s not that they’ll eventually be consulting advertisers ahead of teams about proposed changes. Evidently, they already are. Sponsors had their spots ready to go. The players had no idea this was happening.
If FIFA can get away with this, what can’t do they do? A longer halftime? More bodies on the field? One celebrity or billionaire guest player per side?
None of those things is any more fundamental than the currently-being-discarded idea of halves.
If you can change that in the midst of the world’s biggest tournament, featuring the game’s loudest voices, and get away with it, is any tradition in any sport sacred?
Paul Childs/Reuters