Cup group stage has injury time equivalent to 5 and a half matches

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If, with the debut of VAR and the delays caused by the video referee, the 2018 World Cup was the “Cup of injury time”, the 2022 may be the “Cup of even bigger injury time” – and offsides.

Survey of Sheet Comparing the last two editions of the World Cup, the minutes added in the group stage increased from 288 in Russia to 511 in Qatar. This is equivalent to 5.6 matches of 90 minutes. That’s two and a half games more just in the additional time difference between the two editions.

The analysis takes into account the time stipulated by the judge, and not what actually took place in the match. In the duel between Serbia and Switzerland held this Friday (2), for example, the 7 minutes defined by the arbitration are counted, and not the almost 10 that elapsed.

The high drew attention in the early days, a period in which traditionally the additions are shorter. The average rose from less than 2 minutes to almost 4 minutes. There were 14 only in the initial stage of the duel between Iran and England, in the first round of Group B.

At the time, the English won by 6 to 2. The duel was paralyzed in the first half after a head collision involving the Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand, who fell on the lawn, was bleeding and had to be attended to by doctors. He even tried to continue in the match, but was replaced in the sequence, which further slowed down the game governed by Brazilian referee Raphael Claus.

With 10 extra minutes in the second half, the match between Iran and England was also the one with the most added time at the end, tied with South Korea vs. Ghana and Costa Rica vs. Germany.

The rise in additions also appeared in the second stages, going from an average of just over 4 minutes in 2018 to over 6 and a half in 2022.

The longer matches stem from FIFA’s guidance, which asked the referees to be more rigorous when monitoring the stoppages of the matches, under the understanding that the games spent a lot of time stopped and the interruptions were not properly compensated.

“People want more football. And they’ve been asking us to do something about it for years,” said Pierluigi Collina, president of FIFA’s Referees Committee. “We are very happy with this result.”

In the 2022 World Cup, all first and second half of the group stage games had injury time. In 2018, the replacement did not appear in the first half of five matches and in the second half of one.

Those extra minutes were put to good use by the Portuguese Bruno Fernandes. In the 2-0 victory over Uruguay, which gave the winners early access to the knockout stages, he converted a late penalty.

The move, motivated by a deflection of defender Giménez’s hand inside the area, marks something that was rarer in this edition of the World Cup: penalties. They went from 24 in the last Cup to 14 now.

And it was precisely the ball in hand rule that was one of the main changes in the regulations between the two editions of the Cup. In practice, penalties scored for irregular touching dropped from 7 to 2.

For the current season, the International Football Association Board, the entity that regulates the laws of football, has formalized a change in the rules saying that not all touches of the ball in a player’s hand should be considered irregular. Now, a deliberate movement by the athlete is required to configure the infraction, or the arm is in an “unnatural position”, expanding the player’s action space.

With technological reinforcement, impediments also jumped 29% compared to 2018. There were 143 in the last Cup and now 185.

The current VAR is capable of tracing offsides semi-automatically, using equipment that tracks the ball and the position of players on the pitch. With this, the referees in the booth receive an alert in cases of potential irregularities, and a 3D model of the play is generated for checking.

The change directly impacted Argentina in its defeat to Saudi Arabia by 2-1 in the Group C debut. At the time, the Latin Americans managed to score four times in the first half, but only one goal was worth it.

In terms of cards, little change. The yellow ones went from 160 in the last Cup to 166 this year. And the expulsions, from 3 to 2, with only one in each edition with a direct red card. In this calculation, the warnings for members of technical commissions were disregarded.

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