For American viewers of the World Cup final on Sunday, the sport the rest of the world knows as football will closely resemble the one Americans call the same name.
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That’s because, perhaps taking a cue from the Super Bowl, the FIFA World Cup final will feature its very own halftime show.
Unlike the Super Bowl, however, the World Cup’s halftime show is not being met with quite the same anticipation as say, a performance by Bad Bunny. That’s because the halftime show is the latest maneuver by FIFA that arguably changes the spirit of the sport, which started with this tournament’s hydration breaks.
Although FIFA had implemented “cooling breaks” before to address such sweltering conditions as the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this year was the first time that hydration breaks were mandated to take place in the middle of each half of every game. Lasting three minutes each, the breaks effectively broke matches into quarters, which critics, such as England coach Thomas Tuchel, said “interrupts and changes the identity of a football match much more than I thought.”
Said Uruguay coach Marcelo Bielsa: “Playing four periods instead of two alters the culturally constructed conception of how to interpret football. In my view, it adds nothing and takes away a lot. When [the match] was divided into four periods, no thought was given to the effect it might have on what makes football such a captivating sport.”
Other coaches, like the U.S.’s Mauricio Pochettino, did not initially endorse the idea but later tried using them to his advantage. During a pre-tournament friendly in Charlotte, he was seen showing players tactical adjustments on a laptop during one such break.
“I think it’s nice to have a hydration break,” U.S. player Sergiño Dest said last month. “It’s also [a chance] to kind of settle and talk with your teammates. It can be nice.”
Halftime, however, will be a much longer break than players are accustomed to. To set up the on-field stage for the co-headliners of Justin Bieber, Madonna, Shakira and BTS, the mid-match break could last around 25 minutes, according to Reuters.
This is despite international football rules explicitly stating that halftime should not last longer than 15 minutes.
Soccer has attempted halftime shows before, such as during last year’s Club World Cup. In 2024, CONMEBOL produced a halftime show for the Copa America final between Argentina and Colombia, which was met with some criticism.
“I think the halftime for the final should be 15 minutes because those are the rules,” Colombia coach Nestor Lorenzo said before that match. “But now apparently, because there’s going to be a concert, we’ll be walking back out 20 to 25 minutes later. This could affect the players’ fitness. They could cool down too much. Those minutes of recovery in the dressing room… people don’t understand what it takes to reach those levels.”
On top of the hydration breaks turning World Cup matches from two halves into four quarters and the extended halftime, FIFA also announced Thursday that — for the first time in the sport’s history — Sunday’s winning players will receive championship rings in addition to the World Cup trophy and gold medals.
In the press release announcing the rings, FIFA said it was “bringing one of the most recognizable American sporting traditions to the global game.”
FIFA has done exactly that, in more ways than one.
