The Football.....

[Dorset Boy]

The difficulty with your response is every scenario falls within the rules of the game and apply equally to both matches. Adding a hydration break to one and not the other immediately changes that situation. If one game is delayed for any reason within the same rule set this is acceptable. Extending one game by changing the rules is unfair.

I'm not arguing for or against hydration breaks but I'm arguing for all games to be played under the same set of rules. You're prepared to have two matches played under different rule sets. That is fundamentally unfair.

My example was to demonstrate that the known outcome of one result potentially influences another match. Had Utd needed a draw to become champions they might have chosen to play keep ball. Instead they had no option but to attack potentially leaving themselves wide open to counter attack and defeat.

The Dutch played within the rules, if there were hydration breaks they would have had to play within those rules.

Except every match is different - different refereeing interpretations, different time keeping standards, different sized pitches, different weather, different pitch conditions, different sized changing rooms etc etc.
Previous tournaments have had a short hydration break only if required, not a technical 3 minute break.

The big issue has been that they haven't really been hydration breaks, but a technical break allowing coaches to change the message. They only need to be 60 seconds to grab a drink, with no coaches allowed on the pitch.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

The difficulty with your response is every scenario falls within the rules of the game and apply equally to both matches. Adding a hydration break to one and not the other immediately changes that situation. If one game is delayed for any reason within the same rule set this is acceptable. Extending one game by changing the rules is unfair.

I'm not arguing for or against hydration breaks but I'm arguing for all games to be played under the same set of rules. You're prepared to have two matches played under different rule sets. That is fundamentally unfair.

My example was to demonstrate that the known outcome of one result potentially influences another match. Had Utd needed a draw to become champions they might have chosen to play keep ball. Instead they had no option but to attack potentially leaving themselves wide open to counter attack and defeat.

The Dutch played within the rules, if there were hydration breaks they would have had to play within those rules.

I don't see how "The referee may pause or delay the game if spectators enter the pitch" is any different to "The referee may pause the game for a water break if temperatures exceed 30C". That's literally the same for both games, one set of rules, what changes between the two games is circumstances. That a football match is two halves of 45 minutes is fundamental to how the game has been played, and critical to the development of football tactics and strategies, for over 150 years. You can't muck around with that unless absolutely necessary, like if it's actually dangerous not to have a water break. We saw it time after time this world cup, that a team had just established some momentum and the referee destroyed it by calling a waterbreak. This isn't hypothetical - there are teams that failed to score goals that were almost certainly coming and others that were on the ropes but saved by the bell (whistle). That definitely changed outcomes.

Anyway, I've already provided a workable solution for you - the game without the waterbreak starts six minutes later so it's scheduled to finish at the same time.

 

[Pblakeney]

Well if it's that much of a problem, just start the game that requires hydration breaks six minutes earlier than the one that doesn't 🤷‍♂️

You wouldn't pause a different game for any other reason if its parallel game was paused, would you? If a dog runs on a pitch and it takes four minutes to catch it, you wouldn't pause the other game for four minutes. A player needing ten minutes of treatment on the pitch? Delayed start due to turnstile issues or traffic? Betting syndicate unplugged the floodlights in the second half? The referee has ample opportunity to pause or delay a game already, this isn't really any different.

As for your example - if Man U had only needed a draw to become champions it might have worked. The fact they needed a win made it irrevelvant that it finished later. It's not like they would have been given six extra minutes to find a goal if they'd had a hydration break (we'll not get into a discussion of Fergietime here...)

Because what's really not fair is a team that's done the work to get the opposition on the back foot, that's pressing players that are disorganised, whose legs are burning with lactic acid, who are no longer sure if their gameplane is right and if they're making the right decisions, being told to stop playing for three minutes so everyone can have a break when it's only 23C and its absolutely unnecessary. Because so much of football is the attempt to engineer that exact situation. You know that total football stuff the Dutch played in the seventies (that is also foundational for Spanish tiki-taka, through Cruyff bringing some of its ideas to Barca)? Listen to e.g. Cruyff speak about it. Everyone loved it for being free flowing, but tactically it was about using possession of the ball and the technical ability to swap places to engineer numerical advantages on the pitch and make the opposition run more. Total football was essentially about tiring the opposition out by using the ball and switching positions. Four quarters destroys that.

Is it even worth pointing out that a lot (most?) of the elite players regularly play in leagues where high temperatures are the norm without hydration breaks?

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Except every match is different - different refereeing interpretations, different time keeping standards, different sized pitches, different weather, different pitch conditions, different sized changing rooms etc etc.
Previous tournaments have had a short hydration break only if required, not a technical 3 minute break.

The big issue has been that they haven't really been hydration breaks, but a technical break allowing coaches to change the message. They only need to be 60 seconds to grab a drink, with no coaches allowed on the pitch.

If you cut any break to 60-90 seconds then it doesn't really matter about the coaching anyway, there's a limit to what he/she could convey in that time while players are also trying to get a drink and get back in position. And at 60" the time difference between two matches evaporates, that's pretty much a rounding error with the stoppages all counted.

 

[matticus]

Bit of a misleading statement that.

oh.