USA, Mexico and Canada will also host the next World Cup for the Nationals, but today’s alarm will not change: that’s why
While Charlotte is with the nose upwards and observes what can ever fall from the sky, with the ear tense to the news while waiting for the next lightning alert that will paralyze every outdoor manifestation, the football arrived so far wonders with a certain restlessness: is it really the right place to organize a world championship, whether it is this for club or the one for nations of next year? If FIFA praises the almost 2 million tickets sold and the huge stadiums still begin to fill up for real, the logistical problems add up on the other side: weighs the heat, asphyxiating at times, and then the continuous atmospheric risks, which block and condition the matches, and training or game fields, sometimes not suitable because they do not think directly for football. Chelsea coach, Enzo Maresca, did not change his tongue when he had to talk about the weight of the climatic factor on the event. Moreover, he had just spent two infinite hours in the changing rooms of the Bank of America Stadium, before resuming the game with his Chelsea against Benfica: “In a World Cup how many races are suspended? Probably zero. In Europe? Zero. This is not football. You cannot be closed in the changing rooms two hours. It is something completely new. I understand that for safety reasons you have to suspend the game. It is the best and we are happy to be in the quarterfinals.
lightning and saette
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In this new reality, in which the weather is the expected protagonist more than Messi, Haaland or Lautaro, there are six races that have undergone delays for the complications of the time. It all started with the thunderstorms that made the challenge between Ulsan and Mamlodi Sunday lengthens more than an hour in Orlando, Florida. In Cincinnati, Ohio, about 1450 kilometers further north, during Salzburg-Pachuca another 97-minute stop for the same reason, under a black sky like the PEC. Then, at the Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, in New Jersey, it was the turn of Palmeiras-Ahly: always the fault of the sudden showers on the region, with a torrid heat that had pushed the fans to look for shelter in the shade. They will also be short -lived, but the lightnings have consequences: at the same time, in nearby Manhattan, in Central Park, a fifteen year old under a tree was hit and has saved himself miraculously. The numbers are clear: the dead in the United States for the electrocution emergency have only been in the last year. Poor Auckland City, imprisoned in the same climatic problems, must be added to the cauldron, both when it was under 6-0 with Benfica, and in the last of the group at the Geodis Park of Nashville, when he managed to equalize with the Boca thanks to a heroic goal of a physical education teacher. Everything, before the Kolossal between Chelsea and Benfica, the first elimination match to be postponed, here in North Carolina where the laws are very hard and do not allow derogation. If lightning are detected within a radius of 12.7 km from the stadium, the so -called “Seek Cover Protocol” is activated, or the obligation to suspend the event for half an hour and the consequent search for adequate coverage for the people inside. The counter starts every time a new lightning is reported, always within the same ray from the Charlotte Bank of America Stadium, just over eight miles.
same scenario
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In any case, nothing different from the complex normality in this part of the planet: the extreme heat between West and East Coast, between Los Angeles and Miami, or sudden thunderstorms in Charlotte are a constant for the Americans during the summer months of June and July. There were already in the US World Cup 1994, but climate change has put the load and complicated the organization of an event like this, also because the scenario will be the same even in a year, in the world for nations. In detail, of the six matches conditioned so far by the delay for climatic reasons, there is only one, Palmeiras-Ahly, played in a stadium that will also host the 2026 event: East Rutherford, that of the final. Orlando, Cincinnati, Nashville and Charlotte, on the other hand, rest next year.
hot
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In a gigantic country, weather challenges vary, however, from state to state. For this reason, the National Meteorological Service (NSW) has collaborated in close contact with the FIFA safety manager to develop plans for all 11 US cities of the World Cup 2026. The next summer the NSW will directly send its meteorologists to each location to help local authorities, protect people and the event itself. Of course, international fans may not know the nuances and risks of American summer, but the risk of conditioning such a great event is now evident: safety and organization here do not seem to go hand in hand. It was not enough, as Inter know well, it is often played in the hot American afternoon to facilitate the European television audience: nice to enjoy the games on TV from our side of the world, but there is also to be considered as this heat in all its shades – more ventilated to the west, very seventeen to the east – ends up influencing the players.
clover
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Certain images of the Club World Championship have gone around the world: Cooling Break veils, cold towels to be hung up like Koala, feet but also heads immersed in ice, such as that of Harry Kane who became meme on social media. At the TQL Stadium in Cincinnati, for example, the benches of Borussia Dortmund witnessed the first half of the match against the Mamlodes Sunday from the changing rooms for too much warmth: “I made a sauna …”, joked the German technician, Niko Kovac, after the victory of his 32 ° roasted team. After taking 4 from PSG, the Atletico Median, Marcos Llorente, chose the dramaturgy: “It was a terrible heat. Even the nails of the feet hurt”. Also Maresca, hearing the 41st perceived in training, admitted that it was impossible to organize a whole session in those conditions: inevitable to reduce it and change floors. Since any physical effort in such intense heat conditions causes an increase in body temperature, it will be necessary to modify something thinking about 2026: pushed rotations, ad hoc workouts, enlarged prevention will be even more important, because the fresh here will certainly not come. Some countermeager, however, already exists: the AT & T stadium of Dallas, which will be called only Dallas Stadium, has not hosted this event but will welcome 9 games next year in a closed structure, with a refrigeration system that will be enhanced to guarantee a minimum of comfort for players and spectators.
hard fields
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The challenge of the World Cup will be with the climate, very hard opponent, but also with the fields, because even in this area the complaints have not been lacking. Some of those of the matches are questionable, far from the magnificent grass of the British meadows, but it was above all the synthetics of training not to be up to par. In Los Angeles, on the UCLA campus, Inter found a festive atmosphere from Graduation Day, but in the Soccer Stadium the ground was definitely too hard and sandy, and did not help prepare Chivu’s debut well. It went worse to the Mexican colleagues in the same Nerazzurri group: Monterrey claimed from FIFA that the structure had changed assigned to them. They had planned training sessions at Loyola Marymount University, always in the city of angels, but the risk of accidents would also grew on those fields.
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