With temperatures close to 32 degrees Celsius at Cincinnati’s TQL Stadium on Saturday (21) during a club World Cup match, the German team Borussia Dortmund published on social networks: “Our reserves watched the first half inside the locker room to avoid the scorching sun – we saw it before, but with this heat, it makes perfect sense.”
The message was accompanied by a photograph of players who would normally be in the bench, sitting from shorts and t -shirts around a table fueled with drinks.
Players, coaches and fans were already concerned about the high temperatures in the opening week of the Club World Cup, and now a heat wave in the United States is further raising temperatures.
“The match was clearly influenced by temperature,” said Luis Enrique, coach of European champion Paris St.-Germain, after the team’s debut game against Atletico Madrid in Los Angeles, who started at noon at the local time. “The time is great for the European public, but the teams are suffering.”
During this week, parts of the country should be even warmer, including places where football games are taking place. Eight of the 11 host cities are on the east coast.
The time of matches in this tournament is a concern, with 35 of 63 matches starting before 5 pm local time, and 15 of them starting at noon. Only two of these noon games will be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, which is the only participant place with ceiling.
This tournament is a kind of rehearsal for the 2026 World Cup, which will be played in the United States, Canada and Mexico at the same time of the year. The approach of FIFA (International Football Federation) to protect players and fans under these conditions will probably be the target of greater scrutiny.
“It’s hard, but we have to get used to it because the tournament is here, and next year the World Cup will also be here,” said Aurelien Tchouameni, midfielder of France and Real Madrid.
Players and coaches have used cold and ice towels, applying them to the back of the neck or on the head during the breaks.
At the Real Madrid training base in Miami, the club included warm tents among the temporary structures they installed before the team arrived to simulate the conditions that players would face. Temperatures within tents can range from 35 to 50 degrees Celsius, and humidity rises from about 30% to 80% at the end of the session.
Teams like Manchester City and Juventus have used training sessions to deliberately try to speed up the adaptation process, with City technician Pep Guardiola, conducting long training in Florida’s scorching heat at the base of the team in Boca Raton. Last Friday’s session lasted almost two hours at temperatures above 32 degrees.
Phil Foden, City midfielder, said after the team’s debut match (starting noon in Philadelphia) that he and his companions tried to play more with possession to deal with the conditions.
Juventus has mirrored their training schedules to coincide with the games schedules, defender Lloyd Kelly saying to the press after the team’s debut game “in the last ten days at the hottest times of the day.”
This match against Al Ain began at 9 pm last Wednesday, but despite the late time, the conditions in Washington were still hot and damp enough that after the match, American striker Timothy Weah said to reporters: “I just played a while, and it seemed I was really hot.”
Fans who watch the matches have also suffered from heat. The biggest problems occurred in open stadiums, where there is little or no shadow for fans.
In the Palmeiras match against Al Ahly on Thursday, which began at noon at Metlife Stadium in New Jersey, the fans changed their seats to try to stay in shaded areas and, in the interval, filled the interior of the stadium in search of shelter and access to water.
Brazilians are not strange to high temperatures, but palm fans who made the trip were not yet satisfied with the early start, with a fan telling The Athletic: “At home, our matches don’t start before 4 pm or 5 pm. This is not a good time.”
The followers of the Egyptian club al Ahly echoed this feeling. Many had brought children to the game and passed parts of the match taking refuge in areas with air conditioning to escape the heat.
The only reference to extreme climate in FIFA regulations for the tournament is the use of cooling breaks. These pauses in the game are implemented around 30 and 75 minutes in cases where the temperature of global moist bulb – a measure of heat, moisture, wind and sunlight – exceeds 32 degrees Celsius in the field. The breaks allow players to hydrate and use cooling measurements such as ice towels, and can last from 90 seconds to three minutes.
In response to questions from The Athletic, FIFA said its medical experts “have been in regular contact with clubs to address heat management.” He also said he is working with local medical authorities.
The Athletic reported on Sunday that the national weather service has been working with FIFA to develop plans for all 11 American cities that are preparing to host World Cup games next year. One advantage is that some places that are not in use this summer, such as AT&T Stadium in Dallas and NRG Stadium in Houston, are covered stadiums.
