Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Are you watching the 2022 World Cup and noticing there’s a TON of extra stoppage time in matches so far? And you’re wondering what’s up with that? We’re here to help.
No, it’s not just you: There’s been a lot of stoppage time that we’ve seen in World Cup matches in Qatar thus far, seemingly more than usual.
There’s actually an explanation for it that we’ll get into, and it’s one that’s good for soccer fans (at least in my opinion!).
Let’s dive in:
Wait, start from the beginning. How does stoppage time work?
Sure! The clock runs during a 90-minute soccer game, but when a player is injured, or there’s down time before a throw-in or corner kick, or goal celebrations and so on with any kind of delay, that time is added up and thrown on to the end of each 45-minute half.
And you say there's been more of it in the 2022 World Cup?
Is it just me or this WC’s stoppage time’s been very generous every game lol
— Mo Syed (@MoSyed110) November 23, 2022
at this stoppage time rate this WC gonna end in March 2025.
— AZ (@azkhawaja1) November 22, 2022
Yep!
Why?
Because FIFA — soccer’s governing body — made it a point of emphasis.
“The World Cup is the most important tournament on earth,” said Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee during a news conference in Doha.
He said the 129 match officials working the 64 games of the World Cup have been given a simple message: “We recommended our referees to be very accurate in calculating the time to be added at the end of each half to compensate to time lost due to a specific kind of incident.”
This includes, Collina said, adding time for injury treatment, substitutions, penalty kicks, red cards and, particularly, lengthy celebrations after goals.
“Imagine in a half there are two, three goals scored. So it’s easy to lose three, four, five minutes, only for a goal celebration. This time has to be considered and compensated at the end.”
Collina said they did the same thing in Russia four years ago at the last World Cup. But the stoppage times added in Qatar so far are indeed more — leading to games lasting longer and excitement to the very end.
So we're getting even more soccer action than before?
Maybe it’s more like: We’re getting the right amount of soccer that we should get … and maybe we’ve been short-changed in the past? But more on-field action seems like a good thing.
