Many football fans will not have seen a match with as much stoppage time as England’s 6-2 win over Iran.
Officials added nearly half an hour.
Wales and the Netherlands added 10 extra minutes late in their respective games, while Saudi Arabia, to the chagrin of their bench, had to hold out until the 104th minute to beat argentina.
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England victory over iran in Qatar it was played for over 117 minutes, making it the longest group stage match at any World Cup, according to Opta.
A staggering 14 minutes and eight seconds were added in the first half, followed by 13 minutes and eight seconds late in the second half.
Player time-wasting stops, injury treatment, lengthy goal celebrations, substitutions, VAR interventions, and yellow or red cards are added, making games go on much longer than expected.
A new FIFA directive says “unnatural lost time” must be added at the end of each half.
Speaking to ESPN ahead of the tournament, Pierluigi Collina, chairman of FIFA’s referee committee and a former World Cup official, said: “What we already did in Russia [2018] was to more precisely calculate the time to be compensated.
“We told everyone not to be surprised if you see the fourth official raising the electronic board with a big number, six, seven or eight minutes.
“If you want more active time, we need to be prepared to see this kind of extra time awarded.
“Think of a game with three goals scored. A celebration normally lasts one, one and a half minutes, so with three goals scored, you lose five or six minutes.”
He added: “What we want to do is accurately calculate the added time at the end of each half.
“He may be the fourth official to do that, we were successful in Russia and we expect the same in Qatar.
“I am not talking about the VAR intervention, this is something different and calculated by the Video Assistant Referee in a very precise way.
“It is the fourth referee who usually proposes added time and the referee usually [ultimately] to decide.”
Historically, referees have applied forcefully new FIFA directives at World Cup tournaments, such as swift penalties for dissent or dangerous tackles.
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The desire to see more of the ball in play has grown throughout an era where obvious time wasting became more common.
But large amounts of time being added isn’t entirely new: in the English Football League this season, some games ended with around 10 minutes added to the second half.
The officials have pointed out the high number of substitutions in the second period, but goals scored in stoppage time with all the celebrations that follow can also extend extra time even further.
