It had been a long day. Much, much longer than inzo Maresca wanted it. The game was suspended for almost two hours while waiting for time to pass over Charlotte, but the storm whipped by post-match comments of Chelsea coach threatens to scold much longer.
“This is a joke,” he said after the Knockout Cup conflict of Chelsea with Benfica was maintained for 113 minutes, the sixth deadline confirmed by the tournament storm and the third hour and more interruption. And he continued to use these words – “a joke” – while clearly showing that he did not see the funny side, despite the release of his team manue 4-1 after an additional time in a match that started at 4 p.m. local time and concluded at 8:38 p.m.
“For me, it’s not football,” he said during his post-match press conference. “There are already seven, eight, nine (in fact six games that they have suspended. I can understand that for the reasons for security (security), you have to suspend the game. But if you suspend seven, eight games, it means that it is probably not the right place to do this competition.”
We asked Maresca if, by “not the right place”, he meant Charlotte specifically or the United States more widely.
“No, no, no,” he said, first seeking going back before standing. “I say that (…) If in this competition, they have already suspended six, seven, eight games, there is probably something that does not work well. Because in football, it is not normal to suspend a match. ”
You will not find, at the time of writing, none of these quotes on the website or the social networks of FIFA or Chelsea. It would be an understatement to say that it was in contradiction with happy and clapping messaging which is preferred in the World Cup of the Gianni Infantino club. The official flow of the tournament’s social media did not even mention the heist in its live updates.
Benfica and Chelsea players leave the field (Justin Setterfield – FIFA / FIFA / Getty Images)
MARESCA continued, repeating the same point, explaining its frustration that the two teams are left in the locker room while waiting for an update and the way it affected the game.
Chelsea led 1-0 when the game was suspended in the 86th minute. At the restart, almost two hours later, the dynamics of the game had radically changed, Benfica forcing an equalizer who took the additional link.
“Guys, please don’t understand me,” said Maresca. “I said that it was a fantastic competition. It’s the club World Cup, it’s the top, we are happy to be in the last eight, happy to win, all these kinds of things. But something is happening, six, seven suspended games … It is not normal to suspend a game. In a World Cup, how many matches are suspended? Zero, probably. Zero. “”
In fact, a direct elimination match in the last summer summer championship finals between Denmark and Germany host was interrupted for 24 minutes due to a storm. There was a longer delay, 58 minutes, during a match between Ukraine and France in Donetsk at Euro 2012. But Maresca is right to underline how the experience of the World Cup in clubs in the United States proves; The 113-minute hold-up of Saturday is not even the longest in the tournament, a record held by Benfica’s victory over Auckland City in Orlando last Friday (134 minutes).
The match between Palmeiras and Al Ahly in Metlife was also suspended (Nicolò Campo / Lightrocket / Getty Images)
Staffy storms and heat are accepted as facts of life during an American summer, as is the potential impact on major sporting events. But “Big Four” sports leagues, only the stages of the MLB correspond to the outside at the height of summer – and it is baseball, which is stopped by nature and where several of the stadiums built in recent years have a retractable roof.
There have been storms interrupting the football games played in the United States, including the football games of Major League and the semi-final of Copa America in Chicago in 2016. What happened during this Club World Cup, with six selected games, was extreme, which raises questions not only on the selection of host cities, but on the protocol that requires Radius
Because it is the club World Cup – because it has not captured anything with such an interest that FIFA you would make it believe – the interruptions were relatively easy to raise your shoulders. But it is becoming more and more a problem while thoughts are turning to the World Cup next summer, to play in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Remember the feeling of alarm on weather conditions when the FIFA executive committee voted to organize the 2022 World Cup in the desert heat of Qatar? The tournament was finally spent in winter.
There was little or no alarm of this type around 2026 despite the memories of the heat wave that swept the United States during the 1994 World Cup. Sadly famous, temperatures reached 105F (40.6c) during the 1994 match between Mexico and the Republic of Ireland, which started at 12:30 p.m. local time in Orlando’s humidity.
It is interesting to look back on FIFA technical assessments for offers to accommodate the 2026 World Cup. At no time do the supply inspectors seem to raise the question of the calendar – in North America or in the Moroccan rival candidacy – even if the Qatar finals have been moved in winter, as will probably be the 2034 tournament in Saudi Arabia.
Regarding the Moroccan offer, FIFA inspectors cited “extreme” heat in interior cities like Marrakech and Ouarzazate, with temperatures “reaching 37C (98.6F)” in the middle of the afternoon in July.
With the “United” offer from North America, the report indicates that “10 of the 23 cities offered (hosts) have medium-sized peak temperatures during the months of June and July which climb above 30 ° C (86F)” and specifically cite the heat of the afternoon which goes to 36 ° C (96.8F) in some of the Mexican candidates before the mention that ” candidates and candidates’ levels ”. He adds: “Three of the cities at high average temperatures (Atlanta, Dallas and Houston) have offered stages that have temperature control.”
Atlanta, Dallas and Houston all cut when the host cities of 2026 were reduced from 23 to 16 years. Of the five cities facing interruptions related to the storm at the club World Cup, four (Cincinnati, Nashville, Orlando and now Charlotte) were not chosen for next summer. But there was a delay in the match between Palmeiras and Al Ahly at the Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, who will host the final of the World Cup next year as well as the semi-finals and the final of the club World Cup.
All this alludes to a more calculated strategy for next year’s World Cup, which, after all, is by far a larger and more prestigious event. But if FIFA means that after a selection process of a judicious host location, it will be another story next summer, then holds like that in Charlotte on Saturday – and the delays of the hour and more at the previous matches in Orlando and Cincinnati – you make it more difficult to take the Club World Cup as serious as Infantino and Fifa tell us.
This is what Maresca was livid. Chelsea had carried out a 1-0 victory, thanks to an intelligently taken free kick to Captain Reece James, when the Slavko referee Vincic ordered the players to leave the field and to go to the safety of the locker room because of what FIFA called “a violent time in the region”. The spectators were invited to look for a blanket, with the stalls which emptied themselves and many fans submitted to a competition while waiting for other updates.
There was no other communication before a few moments before the players warm up almost two hours later. The two clubs published photos of the interior of their locker rooms; The Chelsea included Marc Cucurella, Moises Caicedo and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall on the exercise bikes and Robert Sanchez making kilometers with his colleagues goalkeeper. “It was,” James told journalists with a feeling of euphemism, “quite disruptive.”
– Chelsea FC (@Chelseafc) June 28, 2025
Maresca said it was worse than that. “Two hours inside,” he said. “The people who speak with the family outside (to let them know) if they were good, security (security), people eating, laughing people, speaking on the mobile. It’s two hours. This is why I said that it was not football. You break the tempo.”
What is funny is that, for the small number of supporters who stayed to look at it, what happened after the hiatus was so much more entertaining than what preceded. Benfica returned with an increased sense of the objective, desperately pushing to an equalizer who came from the penalty point after the replacement for Chelsea, Malo Gusto, was harshly tried to have managed the ball. Angel Di Maria, desperate to extend his career in Benfica for another half hour, has shown no mercy on the place.
The additional time was wild. Benfica had sent the Gianluca Prestianni substitute for a second reservable offense, but even then there was chances at each end before a wave of Chelsea objectives, with replacements Christopher Nkunku and Dewsbury-Hall marking each side of a calm finish of Pedro Neto. The scenes that Nkunku marked showed how Chelsea has invested emotionally in this tournament, Maresca displaying the field to join the celebrations.
And in times like this, you can try to convince yourself that the whole situation has added to entertainment: that due to the conservation, the crowd and the television public were entitled to a dramatic final which would not have arrived otherwise.
But the fact is that the crowd was disappointing first, barely 25,929 on a Saturday afternoon for equality of direct elimination in a stadium which contains almost three times. As the game resumed, the vast majority of them had abandoned and returned home. Without a doubt, many of the public television audience had also died.
“It’s not football,” said Maresca – despite his satisfaction with the recovery of this team with an additional time and an excitement from a quarter -final meeting with Palmeiras on Friday.
This one, moreover, takes place in Philadelphia, where Maresca said last week that the outbreak of temperatures made “almost impossible” his players to train the day before their match against Esperance de Tunis.
Some may feel that Maresca complains unnecessarily, a 45 -year -old man shouting in the clouds, so to speak. But the weather conditions have become the hottest subjects of this club World Cup. The players, the coaches, the fans and certainly the broadcasters hope desperately that it is different next summer.
(Top Photo: Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)
