The World Cup in Qatar started with matches that lasted more than 100 minutes and unusual stoppage time

At its inception, the Qatar World Cup He has not yet left great moments from the football expression. Apart from England’s 6 goals against Iran, the referee is at the center of attention for now. And not just for the debut of the semi-automatic offside. What has made the most noise so far has been the large number of added minutes, resulting in games of 100 minutes or more being played.

Much has been said – and is still being said – about the net time played in matches, which in several cases is reduced, both with national teams and with clubs. Between the fouls, the substitutions and the tempo players make when their teams are winning, situations that are on the radar of the Fifathat tries to offer a better show.

Due to what happened in the first four matches between Sunday and Monday, there is a policy of the football parent company to respect the maximum playing time possible. Is that these meetings have far exceeded the regulatory barrier of 90 minutes.

The game that lasted the least of the first four of this World Cup was the initial one, played between Qatar and Ecuador. Said comparison reached 100 minutes of game, adding 5′ of aggregate in each phase.

Monday began with an unusual event. In England-Iran they played 118 minutes, being the match with the highest total playing time at the moment. An injury to the Iranian goalkeeper in the first phase delayed action and led Brazilian judge Raphael Claus to opt to add 14 minutes.

Meanwhile, another 10 minutes were added in the supplement, with the particularity that the match would not end until the 104th minute due to the penalty for Iran in the last of the 10 minutes added after the VAR review. Which is to say that there was, after all, Added 28 minutes between moments.

Reached the second meeting of the day, between Senegal and the Netherlands 102 minutes. In the first part, 120 seconds were added, while in the second, 9 minutes were added by Brazilian judge Wilton Sampaio in the final part, instance of the match in which the Europeans got their second goal.

And in the final function of the day, which featured Wales and the United States, the total amount disputed was 103 minutes, the second longest. There, 4 minutes were added to the first part of the function and, as in the previous match, 9 minutes completed the final 90 minutes for the final whistle from the referee.

Fifa recommendation

And the minutes added to the World Cup? “We want to avoid matches with only 42 or 43 effective minutes of play. So we will have to compensate for time for substitutions, penalties, celebrations, medical assistance or VAR,” said Pierluigi Collina, FIFA’s chief referee. And he added: “We asked the referees to be very rigorous and to add everything necessary to compensate for the loss of time.”

A few months ago it was rumored, as reported by Corriere dello Sport, that Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, had in mind that football matches would start to last 100 minutes and not the traditional 90 they are used to in football matches. football world. And there was such a stir on social networks that FIFA issued a statement denying such a situation.

In any case, even if it has not been an established rule, in Qatar matches are watched that reach and even exceed 100 minutes of play, which are added to the clock, with the intention of increasing the effective playing time.

In purely football, what attracted the most attention were the minutes discounted in the four games that were played. There have been so many, most of them excessive in the eyes of the fans regardless of the party we are talking about. And no, it wasn’t just the fault of the VAR, who, despite having intervened several times, was not the main protagonist of the story.