Former Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas has suggested four periods of 25 minutes each for the game, with hydration breaks in the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup essentially making it four periods of 22.5 minutes each.
Hydration breaks have been a key feature of World Cup matches this summer, owing to the high temperatures during the North American summer. However, many players and coaches reckon these breaks disturb the momentum of the winning/dominating team, allowing the other team to regroup.
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Nevertheless, Casillas thinks these breaks could be a feature of all matches going forward as he put forth his suggestion in a tweet (as translated from Spanish):
“Seeing the hydration breaks that are already becoming customary in matches, don’t you think that doing 4 periods of 25 minutes would be a good idea in football games? Just putting it out there.”
The viral tweet has garnered 2.7 million views, 5.7K comments, 2.2K reposts and nearly 10K likes at the time of writing.
Casillas is Spain’s FIFA World Cup-winning captain as La Roja won the competition for the first time at the 2010 edition in South Africa, beating the Netherlands 1-0 in extra time.
Overall, the Real Madrid legend has played 17 games at the quadrennial event, keeping six clean sheets across four editions, with five of those shutouts (four on the trot) coming during the triumphant 2010 campaign.
What’s next for Spain at the 2026 FIFA World Cup?
Spain have had a solid start to their 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign. Since a campaign-opening goalless stalemate with competition debutants Cape Verde, La Roja blanked Saudi Arabia 4-0 and Uruguay 1-0 to go through to the knockouts as group winners.
Up next for the 2010 champions is a Round of 32 clash with Austria on Thursday (July 2) at Los Angeles Stadium, Inglewood. Luis de la Fuente’s side are the overwhelming favourites to take the win despite Ralf Rangnik’s team winning their only World Cup meeting (2-1) in the 1978 group stage.
La Roja are looking to become the first reigning European champions to win the World Cup twice, having achieved the feat in 2010, with West Germany (1974) being the only other team to do so.
Edited by Bhargav
