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World Cup ‘hydration breaks’ have changed how soccer is played

Ecuador's players receive tactical advice during a World Cup hydration break Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

By Liam TharmeJune 29, 2026 Updated 3:57 pm EDT

While Gianni Infantino insists that the mid-half hydration breaks are purely for player welfare and not broadcasting purposes, national team coaches are unapologetically trying to use them for tactical advantage.

Effectively the matches are spliced into 22-minute quarters with three-minute rest breaks. “It’s a good thing for coaches,” France national team boss Didier Deschamps told reporters during the group stage. He, like others, have pointed out that it all depends on the flow of the game and which side has momentum — a team in the ascendancy does not want a break.

“In technical terms this changes how we work, we’re talking about three minutes where we can make adjustments,” said Portugal head coach Roberto Martinez.

So how are coaches using them?

Mauricio Pochettino had his U.S. players huddled around a laptop in their pre-tournament warm-up win over Senegal. He wanted them to see clips, not just hear words, which is exactly why most club coaches include video as part of their half-time team talk — and that requires their analyst to leave their vantage point a few minutes early to sprint back to the changing room.

Players must remain on the field during the breaks, so the coaching staff come to them with drinks, ice and tactical instruction.

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There’s also the chance to sneak a substitute on before play resumes, potentially rendering useless whatever discussion the opposition just had.

Switzerland head coach Murat Yakin did exactly that in the 4-1 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, changing both wingers — Johan Manzambi and Ruben Vargas came on for Dan Ndoye and Fabian Rieder — and replacing midfielder Michel Aebischer with Djibril Sow.

“After the second hydration break, we would change a few things, because then the opponent can’t react immediately,“ Yakin explained in his post-match press conference, speaking through an interpreter. ”Maybe that was the edge. We brought in very fast players, and our opponent couldn’t run. It opened up gaps on the edge.“

Take this move on 61 minutes, just before the break. Ndoye and Rieder try to break through the back five, but Amar Dedic spots and tracks his run for the return pass, and clears the danger for a corner.

Switzerland were struggling against a physical opponent. Bosnia pressed them man-to-man as Yakin’s team built up with four defenders and a box midfield. That meant plenty of rotations and Ndoye playing high, alongside No 9 Breel Embolo, but direct passes into the forward line failed to catalyse attacks — they had just seven shots worth 0.25 expected goals in the opening 60 minutes.

Then came the changes and the flurry of goals. It was only the second World Cup match ever, and first since 1982, to have four substitute goals: two for Manzambi, one for Vargas, plus Bosnia’s Ermin Mahmic with a consolation strike.

The opening goal came about because Manzambi showed energy in midfield, sweeping up a loose ball when Embolo lost an aerial duel from Gregor Kobel’s long ball. Immediately Vargas ran down the wing, and Manzambi found him after some smart footwork to evade two Bosnia defenders — note how high Dedic is, and how quickly they worked the ball into the space before the wing-back could recover.

From here, the sequence is a little scrappy. Vargas has two goes at the cross. The first is blocked back to him by Ivan Sunjic and, on his second try, a looping back-post ball for right-back Silvan Widmer is headed away by Sead Kolasinac — but only as far as Manzambi, who rifles in, only three minutes after his introduction.

The third Switzerland goal came from a near-identical move to the one Ndoye and Rieder tried unsuccessfully just before being subbed. This time, with Vargas up against a tired Dedic and captain Granit Xhaka’s disguised passing from the edge of the box, they got the winger in-behind.

He picked out Manzambi, one of three red shirts, and the substitute netted his second.

Another good example came in Sweden’s 5-1 defeat to the Netherlands. Head coach Graham Potter had been caught out by the selection of Brian Brobbey at striker, and his side were 2-0 down inside 17 minutes to a Brobbey brace.

Sweden were trying to mix between a 5-3-2 mid-block and a high press.

The problem was that they were light on the wings against a typically Dutch 4-3-3. Committing their wing-backs high against the Dutch full-backs left them exposed for the first goal. Bart Verbruggen’s long ball over the press found Brobbey, who held off Isak Hien and set the ball to midfielder Tijjani Reijnders.

There was space either side of Jesper Karlstrom, Sweden’s No 6, because both No 8s were positioned high in their man-marking duties against the Dutch No 8s.

It meant Reijnders could put Gakpo into a one-v-one, and he dribbled into a crossing position, passing low across the box for Brobbey to tap in.

“I did not see it coming,” Potter told reporters. “Brobbey changed the dynamic of the Netherlands a lot. He made them go from being a good team to being a very, very good team. To come up against that class of opposition, with that width, that control and the ‘nine’ threat was a bit too much for us. Tactically, we did not react well enough to it,” he added.

So they changed the out-of-possession approach in the first-half hydration break, moving to a 4-4-2 with Alexander Isak off the left to better match up the Dutch shape. It also meant Yasin Ayari could use his energy to press in midfield.

Did it work? Kind of. Sweden stopped the flow of chances until half-time, though there was no need for the Dutch to keep pushing, while two goals seven minutes apart at the start of the second half put the game to bed.

The perspective of Lionel Scaloni, Argentina’s head coach, was that the breaks “give a hand to the weaker team because they have time to fix things, they have time to adjust”. Speaking in a pre-match press conference before facing Austria, he then corrected himself, acknowledging that, by the same logic, better teams can “make corrections” too. “It feels strange adapting to this,” he added.

Another complicating factor is the sheer volume of fast starts this tournament. Twenty six goals were scored in the opening 15 minutes of the first 60 matches (up to and including the final round of group D and F matches).

As a share of total goals that accounts for 16 per cent, twice the proportion we saw four years ago. Coaches are having to turn to plan B to chase a game, or prepare to defend a lead, much earlier. The middle part of each half sees the fewest goals this World Cup, which makes sense given the three-minute break, plus greater additional time in both halves.

“(It) changes the identity of the football match much more than I thought,” England coach Thomas Tuchel said of the breaks. “As a coach of course I like to have influence and to have my team together, but overall I like football more when it is played in one go, in one half. It is hard to build momentum and it’s hard to keep the momentum.”

He made numerous tweaks around the second-half hydration break in England’s 0-0 draw with Ghana. A double switch was made immediately, Anthony Gordon and Declan Rice coming off. Tuchel switched Noni Madueke from right to left wing, giving a natural crosser on that side, and brought on Morgan Rogers and Eberechi Eze as No 8s, two between-the-lines players who could score from distance.

Hydration breaks have all but transformed soccer to a game of four quarters (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

“I had some ideas in the last water break, but I was a bit hesitant,” Tuchel told reporters after. “I have an idea of how we can maybe have a bit more players through the middle. I won’t explain it here because I will try it later in the tournament,” he added. Backup strikers Ollie Watkins and target man Ivan Toney, who was brought specifically for when England need a goal, stayed on the bench.

Madueke only crossed once from the left, picking out Bukayo Saka at the back post. He headed over and, shortly after, Marcus Rashford replaced Madueke for England’s fifth and final change.

“I don’t think we become predictable,” Tuchel said after, in defence of his team. “We have wide wingers; their strength is on the wing. We have full-backs in half-positions that commit to attack, and we try to break it down on the wing,” he added. Substitute left-back Nico O’Reilly almost won the game with a header against the bar from Reece James’ cross.

That game plan — bring on forwards and flood the box with crosses — worked for Japan to earn a point against the Netherlands, and in Germany’s comeback win over Ivory Coast. The win rate for teams scoring first in this tournament is 67 per cent, which is down on the past two World Cup group stages (76 and 74 per cent).

Exactly how much of that is owed to coaches solving problems and implementing solutions in hydration breaks is hard to apportion. What is certain is that, tactically, this format changes the game significantly, and takes it further away from club football.