It’s an extra-large World Cup: record-breaking recoveries

It’s not just England-Iran among the matches that have seen their duration stretched by leaps and bounds

If the inaugural Qatar 2022 match had seen Daniele Orsato, the match’s referee, grant five minutes of recovery time in the first half and five in the second, the second match, between England and Iran, set a small record: 27 total minutes of extra time, with 14 granted in the first half — the nasty injury to Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand was a major influence — and 10 — which later became 13 due to the VAR check on the penalty for the Asians — decreed in the second half.

The trend seems clear: the goal, as FIFA president Gianni Infantino has stated several times in the past, is to ‘let people play as much soccer as possible.’ And so it continued with 11 total minutes of recovery time in Senegal-Holland and another 13 in United States-Wales. Altogether, in the first four matches of the World Cup, it came to more than an hour of recovery time, with 61 extra minutes played. A small record, likely to be continually updated as the competition continues.

Here are the eight rounds of the World Cup:

Group A: Ecuador, Netherlands, Qatar, Senegal.
Group B: Wales, England, Iran, United States.
Group C: Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, Poland.
Group D: Australia, Denmark, France, Tunisia.
Group E: Costa Rica, Germany, Japan, Spain.
Group F: Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Morocco.
Group G: Brazil, Cameroon, Serbia, Switzerland.
Group H: South Korea, Ghana, Portugal, Uruguay.