With the 2026 men’s World Cup in full swing over the next month or so, there’s a notable change some of you soccerheads out there might not be that accustomed to. (Well, aside from the possibility of there not being many real fans around.)
As many of you know, the only time most professional soccer matches actually stop play is at the halftime break. Otherwise, even if the pace might not always be fast per se, matches are always running. It’s part of the appeal of watching soccer, especially when compared to watching American sports and leagues, where it sometimes feels like you get more advertising than whatever sport you’re watching.
In a continuation of a change made for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, this will not be the case for the tournament in North America this summer. There will be two mandatory water breaks at the halfway mark of both halves in every match. Why?
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It’s a matter of player safety on the field, given how much energy they use, especially if temperatures in any given stadium reach dangerous levels, which seems likely to happen at least a few times smack dab in the middle of summer. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this also means that Fox will use these water breaks to shoehorn in short advertising snippets with no action happening. As a result, matches during this World Cup might feel more like they’re segmented into four quarters rather than two halves.
That part is a little shameless (and greedy), but I suppose we can all live with the tradeoff if some of the best soccer players in the world are safer for it.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Why FIFA added water breaks to World Cup 2026 matches, explained
