World Cup: Making up for lost time as matches in Qatar run longer than ever
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Netherlands' Davy Klaassen scoring in nearly the 99th minute during the 2-0 win over Senegal.
PHOTO: REUTERS
DOHA – Matches at the World Cup in Qatar are running longer than at any other tournament after referees were told to account for time-wasting and delays more punctiliously.
According to statistics compiled by Opta before Tuesday’s matches began, the four halves of World Cup matches with the most stoppage time, since records began in 1966, were all on Monday – the second day of the tournament – including an extension of 13 minutes and eight seconds to the second half of England’s 6-2 demolition of Iran.
The first half had even more time added on – 14 minutes and eight seconds – but much of that was caused by a head injury to Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand, who was treated twice before being substituted.
The second halves of the United States’ match against Wales and the Netherlands’ encounter with Senegal both had more than 10 minutes of added time, normally a rarity in football.
Pierluigi Collina, Fifa’s referees chief, said last week that football’s global governing body wanted to ensure as much playing time as possible and referees had been instructed to measure stoppages accurately.
The BBC reported that these stoppages include “injuries, video assistant referee decisions, substitutions, penalties and red cards, with some players often deliberately delaying the restart after such incidents in order to wind down the clock”.
Collina said the move was “nothing new” and it was common at the World Cup in Russia in 2018 for six, seven or even eight minutes to be added to the minimum 90.
He said: “Think about it: if you have three goals in a half, you’ll probably lose four or five minutes in total to celebrations and the restart.”
The result of the extra long stoppage time led to late goals in the matches involving England and the Netherlands.
Mehdi Taremi’s penalty for Iran came with 102:30 on the clock, which is the latest World Cup goal scored excluding extra time.
Davy Klaassen’s goal for the Dutch in their 2-0 win came after 98min 17sec.
The change led to mixed reactions on social media, with some fans praising Fifa for clamping down on time-wasting while others felt that games were unnecessarily long.
Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher believes it is just about right, tweeting: “Enjoying the amount of time that is being added on by the officials at #QatarWorldCup2022 there is too much time wasting in football!” REUTERS