The 16 games of the opening round of the 2022 Soccer World Cup, played from Sunday to Thursday, totaled 226 minutes of discount, an average of 14.1 minutes per game, given FIFA’s intention to increase playing time.
According to information shown on the official website of the organization on the Internet, England’s 6-2 win against Iran, led by the Portuguese Carlos Queiroz, this Monday, in Group B, broke the record for ‘discounts’ in 22 editions of the test, with a duration of 119 minutes.
The Brazilian referee Raphael Claus granted 29 minutes, similar to extra time, of which 15 in the first part, which was conditioned by medical assistance to the Persian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand, and 14 in the second, when video arbitration (VAR) was used. ). to confirm a penalty for the Asians, which was scored by Mehdi Taremi.
An identical injury to Yasser Al-Shahrani in the final moments also helped extend Saudi Arabia’s sensational 2-1 win over Argentina in Group C for 111 minutes, with seven minutes of ‘discounts’ in the first leg and 14 In the second half.
On the eve of the start of the 2022 World Cup, which will be held in Qatar until December 18, the Italian Pierluigi Collina, 62, a former international referee and current president of the FIFA Referees Committee, had already warned that “respect to the spectators and spectators” would lead the world soccer regulator to clamp down on the duration of duels.
“We want to avoid the game having 42, 43 or 44 minutes of useful time. Therefore, the time dedicated to making substitutions, penalties, goal celebrations, medical assistance and use of the VAR must be duly compensated,” he appealed.
This new approach popularized unusual ‘discounts’, the most discreet examples of which were the Morocco-Croatia (0-0), Switzerland-Cameroon (1-0), Brazil-Serbia (2-0) and Uruguay-Ghana (0-0) matches. 0). ), all of which occurred in 100 minutes (10 over the regulatory 90).
The remaining 12 games exceeded that bar, including Portugal’s victory over Ghana (3-2), on Thursday, in Group H, which had an impact on the 14-minute ‘discounts’ of Senegal-Holland (0-2) -three on the way to the break and 11 in the final stretch-, both clashes sharing the seventh place in the durability ranking on the opening day.
“You have to think of it like this: if three goals are scored at a time, four or five minutes will probably be lost in celebrations until the game resumes,” Collina exemplified, defending that “that time must be compensated for.” .
If the first half provided 81 minutes of ‘discounts’, at an average of 5.06 per game, additional times almost doubled the statistic, with 145, at an average of 9.06, moving the 2022 World Cup away from the trend of previous competition editions. .
As a general rule, the referees added between one and two minutes at the end of the initial stage, plus three to five at the end of the duel, in an ‘era’ in which three substitutions were expected, while the VAR system appeared. four years ago, in Russia.
Qatar hosts the first edition of the tournament with the possibility for each team to make five regulatory changes at three different times, and an additional one is also safeguarded in the case of footballers with suspected concussion.
That episode occurred on Monday with the Iranian Alireza Beiranvand, former Boavista goalkeeper, who still tried to stay on the field after colliding with his compatriot Majid Hosseini, generating an initial eight-minute break, from 8 to 16.
The Persians’ match against England would stop again moments later, between minutes 17 and 20, when the ‘goalkeeper’ asked for his substitution and left the pitch on a stretcher, with Carlos Queiroz promoting the first of the six changes made .
The substantial inflation of the time allocated by the referees to compensate for the interruptions in the 2022 World Cup will exacerbate the fatigue of the footballers, who only had one week instead of the usual three to prepare an unprecedented edition of the World Cup in the middle of the season, before a high density of matches in the clubs in a short period of time.
The fitness of the 32 teams, which were able to expand the squad from 23 to 26 athletes, may be put to an even more extreme test after the first phase, when the qualifiers carry the possibility of playing extra time, which allows one additional substitution – and even penalty shootouts.
Extra time of the 2022 World Cup match
Qatar-Ecuador: 0-2 – 12 minutes
Senegal – Netherlands: 0-2 – 14 minutes
England-Iran: 6-2 – 29 minutes
United States – Wales: 1-1 – 15 minutes
Argentina – Saudi Arabia: 1-2 – 21 minutes
Mexico – Poland: 0-0 – 11 minutes
Denmark – Tunisia: 0-0 – 13 minutes
France – Australia: 4-1 – 15 minutes
Germany – Japan: 1-2 – 9 minutes
Spain – Costa Rica: 7-0 – 9 minutes
Morocco – Croatia: 0-0 – 10 minutes
Belgium – Canada: 1-0 – 12 minutes
Switzerland – Cameroon: 1-0 – 10 minutes
Brazil – Serbia: 2-0 – 10 minutes
Uruguay – South Korea: 0-0 – 10 minutes
Portugal-Ghana: 3-2 – 14 minutes
Source: TSF
