This summer, the World Cup will be hosted by the USA, Canada, and Mexico. This means long travel distances for teams and fans, extreme heat and humidity, and a vastly different experience depending on where you happen to be for that match. This could have an impact on how teams perform and therefore, could impact you when playing a World Cup football predictor game! Let’s have a look at how you should look at the host cities and the environment of the World Cup before you start playing a World Cup predictor game.
The impact of extreme temperature and humidity on players
In a recent podcast interview, Wales international and Fulham star spoke about the potential for Wales to qualify for the World Cup this summer. On That Peter Crouch Podcast, Wilson, Crouch, and Steve Sidwell, all talked about times they have played pre-season football in the USA and how difficult it was in baking heat and high humidity to even be comfortable out on the pitch, let alone perform to a high level.
Are the World Cup stadiums built for heat?
Football (and other sports) are played in all of the stadiums that have been chosen to host the World Cup this summer. Mexico, most of the USA, and Canada have hot summers and high temperatures for most of the year, so it is nothing new. In Qatar, even in winter, some of the daytime games reached temperatures exceeding 30 degrees, but all stadiums had been designed with cooling systems. For this World Cup, although all of the stadiums host sports for most of the year, only a few of them have been designed with cooling systems to help fans. Unlike European stadiums, there are some stadiums in the US and Mexico that don’t have any covering for shade at all.
Why hasn’t the World Cup been moved to winter?
Extreme heat played a part in the 2022 World Cup being moved from summer to winter, however, wrecking the football calendar around the world for the year on either side of it. Why hasn’t this been explored for this World Cup? Especially when you consider the heat in some of the host cities will be as hot as you could have expected in Qatar if the tournament had been played in the summer. At last summer’s Club World Cup in the USA, multiple matches were delayed because of extreme heat, lightning storms, and other weather events. For the first time, there will be 3-minute water breaks as mandatory in every single match at the World Cup (although the cynics may argue this is only to allow for more adverts to be shown and another notch on the belt of the Americanisation of football!).
Travel at the World Cup
For fans and teams, the logistics of such a large area, over three countries, hosting one tournament. Qatar 2022 was essentially a 32-team tournament in one city. It was a festival of football, but this time around, there are such large distances between host cities that will it have the same feel as traditional World Cups? There will be such a difference between locations, from chillier Vancouver to humid Miami and hot Mexico City. The travel is bound to have an impact on playing standards and the ability of large numbers of fans from each country to make the atmosphere what we expect.
The impact on a World Cup predictor game
If you are playing a World Cup predictor game this summer with your friends, colleagues, or clients, it’s an interesting conundrum to have. Not only do you need to consider the form of each country, but also where they are playing matches, how much travel they will undertake, as well as the times of day they are playing. You want to win a World Cup predictor game, so take the time to study the schedule and see where you might pick up points by guessing against the norm!
