Officially, this is happening because many games during this North American summer will be played in conditions hot enough to trigger the sport’s heat policy – and since FIFA, in classic FIFA style, just wants to be fair and reasonable to everyone, it was decided the same conditions would apply for every match, no matter the weather. Even if it’s only 22 degrees. Player welfare comes first.
Truthfully, these hydration breaks are only being imposed so that broadcasters have more guaranteed time to show advertisements. But on the early evidence, they are also changing the rhythm of a sport famously defined by uninterrupted flow.
Perhaps fittingly for a World Cup to be held mostly in the United States, hydration breaks are functioning like mandatory timeouts, providing coaches with two more bonus opportunities to influence play and exert control. It looms as a defining feature of the tournament.
From a Socceroos perspective, these breaks are almost tailor-made for them and their current circumstances – to the point where they should probably send a thank you to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
Tony Popovic’s young squad is lacking big-game experience, and has a reputation for making slow starts; the chance to reset after 22-odd minutes of football is like a psychological and tactical safety net.
Australia’s 1-1 draw with Switzerland was only a friendly, but it was played under World Cup rules, so both teams could feel their way through it and understand the implications.
As in last weekend’s defeat to Mexico, the match pivoted on the first drinks break in two ways: one, it halted Switzerland’s early momentum, and two, it enabled Popovic to deliver a message of calm to his players and make small tweaks to the way they were setting up.
It worked. They were much better after that, and better again in the second half.
“It’s just information,” Popovic said.
“It’s trying to make little adjustments that can help you at this level. Even for the goal, we can see Kai Trewin takes one step to the right and the ball goes in between him and Ale [Circati]. That’s the detail. That’s the quality that you’re up against. If we can make those adjustments in the game, that will help us even more.
“We’re very happy that the players could see where the space was in the second half. They could see the areas we spoke about.”
Popovic declined to criticise FIFA’s decision to enforce hydration breaks when he was first asked about them several months ago, saying he was more focused on how best to leverage them. In the same press conference, he suggested he’d be up for a coffee with Sydney Swans coach Dean Cox for advice from the AFL world on how best to bounce back from quarter breaks.
It would shock nobody if he did; those are the sort of lengths Popovic would go to for even the slightest advantage over his opponent.
His rival Mauricio Pochettino, coach of the United States, is no big fan – but he is adapting, too.
Pochettino has gone semi-viral for using his laptop to show footage to his players during the hydration breaks in their warm-up games, crouching down in the middle of a huddle.
Pochettino figures the best way to communicate his ideas to his players is through pictures, though it is unclear if that will be permitted at the World Cup. If it were up to him, it would not be happening at all.
“Of course, if it is too hot – I think the water break is important … but if it’s not too hot and we’re going to play in a stadium where it’s 21, 22, 23 degrees, I think it’s not necessary to stop. The players are prepared and are ready to compete for 45 minutes,” Pochettino said.
“But it’s like plenty of rules today … rules that for sure I don’t like. They say that they’re going to help the spectacle, but we’re going in a direction that we’re going to change.
“Because if we add, add and add rules, then the soccer or the football that we know is going to stop existing, and it’s going to become another sport.”
