Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni believes the mandatory hydration breaks at this expanded World Cup are throwing a lifeline to smaller nations and making the group stages completely unpredictable.<\/p>\n
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Even though the holders cruised to a comfortable 3-0 victory over Algeria in their opening match, Scaloni is refusing to get comfortable ahead of their upcoming match against Austria.<\/p>\n
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Because of the intense summer heat, referees are regularly stopping play to let players drink and cool down. But Scaloni argues that these constant timeouts effectively split a traditional 90-minute football match into four quarters.<\/p>\n
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He warns that there are no longer any “easy games,” because these frequent pauses destroy the physical momentum of dominant teams while giving underdogs the perfect window to catch their breath, regroup, and fix their tactics mid-half.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Midfielder Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez backed up his manager’s view, pointing out that the tournament already feels much more competitive than the 2022 edition in Qatar. Fern\u00e1ndez noted that the gap between the traditional heavyweights and the rest of the world has closed significantly, leaving almost anyone capable of pulling off a massive surprise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With past tournament shocks fresh in his mind, Scaloni has urged fans and players to stay cautious, making it clear that Argentina cannot afford to let their guard drop against a disciplined Austrian side.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37753,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[305,20],"class_list":["post-37751","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-special-projects","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni believes the mandatory hydration breaks at this expanded World Cup are throwing a lifeline to smaller nations","published_date":"2026-06-22 17:01:01","news_description":"Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni believes the mandatory hydration breaks at this expanded World Cup are throwing a lifeline to smaller nations","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37754,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37751\/revisions\/37754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}