For 96 years, the World Cup has belonged to the players. That’s all about to change.
For the first time in World Cup history, the final will pause for an 11-minute halftime concert featuring Madonna, Justin Bieber, Shakira and BTS. They will also be joined by special guests Burna Boy, Coldplay, Post Malone, Gustavo Dudamel, the New York Philharmonic and Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the PS22 Chorus and a cast of over 350 performers.
It’s a spectacle that surpasses the Super Bowl halftime show and is expected to captivate more than 1 billion viewers, while raising more than $100 million to expand children’s access to education and soccer around the world.
But the far more fascinating question for the players on the pitch is how the longer delay will affect the match between Argentina and Spain, and what the field conditions will be like in the second half?
Soccer’s law has always said halftime should not exceed 15 minutes. The halftime show is expected to stretch that to more than 20 minutes. That extra time may sound insignificant to everyone except the 22 players preparing to decide the biggest prize in all of sports.
Elite athletes spend halftime trying to prevent muscles from cooling, heart rates from dropping and rhythm from disappearing. U.S. forward Christian Pulisic played through a calf injury in the first half of the team’s opening 4-1 victory over Paraguay, but the 15-minute halftime break was enough time for his calf muscle to cool and start to tighten, leaving him unavailable for the second half.
That uncertainty makes the chess match inside both locker rooms almost as intriguing as the concert going on outside them.
Will players get longer time on the treatment table? Will they stay warm on the exercise bikes or treadmills? Will the coaches’ halftime speeches get extended? Will the longer break benefit Argentina’s older core or will it interrupt Spain’s possession rhythm and high pressing?
Nobody knows because nobody has ever experienced a halftime this long before.
Spain manager Luis de la Fuente, however, embraced the challenge rather than resisting it.
Every match of the FIFA World Cup will air on either FOX or FOX Sports 1. If you don’t have cable, you can take advantage of a DIRECTV free trial to stream it all.
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“Before starting this journey in May we had a meeting with the players,” he said. “We talked about humidity, long travel, time zones and recovery. We said, ‘It is what it is.’ … Everything we considered strange or odd, hydration breaks, longer halftime, maybe 30 years from now it becomes normality. We have to accept the things we cannot change and enjoy it.”
That pragmatic attitude may prove invaluable.
In order to protect the natural grass field, a custom polyester field cover has been created to shield the field while lightweight staging, specialized rolling camera systems and carefully choreographed setup crews race against the clock. All with one goal in mind: leave the field exactly as they found it.
If they succeed, the halftime show may be remembered as a groundbreaking celebration featuring artists from six continents all united by soccer’s global reach. It’s the perfect encapsulation of the tournament itself.
However, if the second half opens with tired legs, pulled muscles or sloppy passing because of an unusually long delay, critics will wonder whether FIFA’s pursuit of a television spectacle came at the expense of the game itself.
