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How Hydration Breaks Have Impacted World Cup Play (Feat. Cat Bush)
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Noah Riffe speaks with Cat Bush about the statistical impact hydration breaks are having on World Cup play. Noah and Cat dive into the momentum changes and quantifiable impact of these breaks. Read more here: https://futiapp.substack.com/
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This episode of Lobbing Scorchers was previously recorded and streamed live on YouTube.com slash at Lobbing Scorchers. If you want to listen or catch these episodes live, see the video, and see all the rest of our content, go to YouTube.com slash at Lobbing Scorchers or LobbingScorchers.com slash YouTube.
00:01:41
Speaker
Well sir, we got a scorcher today. Gonna be a real scorcher today. Quite the scorcher today. Well it's gonna be a scorcher.
00:02:02
Speaker
What's going
Analyzing Hydration Breaks in Soccer
00:02:03
Speaker
on everyone? Welcome back to Lobbing Scorchers. Today, it's it's the it's a cold day in hell. The statistics have won me over. The vibes guy is going to be diving into some really important data with analytics nerd Kat, who many of you may know on Blue Sky as at KatABush.com.
00:02:24
Speaker
I mean, without without further ado, Kat, how are we? How are we doing? And what are we to be talking about today? Yeah, I'm good. Thanks for having me on. I feel like, you know, we're really breaking boundaries here with ah with data on the Loving Scorchers Vibes pod. So yeah, excited to be here. um And yeah, we're talking about the hydration breaks because I feel like it's the conversations have been all over the place. It's like one of those things where it's so new and so no one knows what's happening. But yeah, excited to to dive into the data on them.
00:02:57
Speaker
I think it's interesting because we're both coming at it from different perspectives. My feelings on it, which, you know, very, very emotional feelings guy over here, is that it has allowed a lot of teams to transition tactically, get a break from like super high pressing teams and teams that just generally have more of an engine. And i feel like...
00:03:19
Speaker
From the eye test, it's looked like that has been something that has really benefited European teams and teams that are playing with with way more tactical managers. So I'm interested from your perspective, what what was your first like inclination to start looking into this?
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, of course, I also have many feelings about these hydration breaks. And I think like ah as soon as Fox had that first ad break and then they came back, you know, 90 seconds later, or whatever, to the match, like they've clearly not been very popular. And I'm probably someone who you know, is in the same boat as you in terms of like, I don't, I don't really like their inclusion in the game. um And especially because like, it's so silly to have a hydration break when you're in a climate controlled stadium or when it's, you know, pouring down rain. um And so I think from my perspective as like a fan, i was like, well, I don't, I don't really like these. And everyone I know doesn't really like these. And then
00:04:19
Speaker
the kind of next thought was like, oh, well, you know, the, I guess the analytical thinking path of like, well, there has to be some kind of measurable impact or maybe there isn't a i measurable impact and that's interesting in and of itself. um And so I think I got to talking with with the guys at Footy, John and Mike, and Mike was able to give me a bunch of really awesome data using the momentum data that powers the momentum charts in the Footy app. And so once I had that, I was able to like actually dig into you know, like not, I guess a little bit more of the kind of the data behind how these things are impacting the game. um And obviously there's a whole, you know, different conversation about what momentum is and how different people classify it and stuff like that. But yeah, that was kind of the the first bit was getting my hands on that data and then actually looking into the impact of these breaks.
00:05:09
Speaker
And for the people who aren't super tuned in with momentum data and momentum, oftentimes we see this displayed as the charts where, you know, it's the the peaks and the valleys going back and forth between two teams in two colors. Could you give us just like a quick brief, I know that it's super complicated, but like a quick introduction, introductory 101 course to momentum as it's displayed in these analytical ways and in charts and stuff?
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, so momentum is sometimes like the the measure that's powering it that's telling you whether the line's up here the line's down here. Sometimes that passes into the final third or some kind of attacking metric. But what Footy uses and what most people use these days is some kind of possession value metric, essentially some way of saying what is the probability that this team is going score in the next 10 actions or the next 10 seconds and you can look at that across a whole you know two minute span say and as a team gets closer to scoring or creates more chances or has more dangerous passes, that probability will increase a lot. And the same is true for the other team. So what you see on like the footy app in the momentum visualization is two different types of bars. There's like a dark bar and then a lighter bar. And so the dark bars are for each team. What was the total possession value or probability of scoring generated in that two minute bin? And then the light bar is just the difference between those two. So kind of the reason to show that is to say, well, one team might have more momentum, but both teams are generating momentum in this kind of two minute span. So that's kind of the the way of showing it. And you'll see other charts where it's just a line. It's usually some kind of smooth thing, but same kind of idea of like kind of what's the difference, which team is generating more momentum, and then how does that change over the course of the game?
00:07:03
Speaker
So I'm interested to know you're taking this momentum data and you're comparing it before and after these water breaks in a sense, like let's start to dive in to where you, you started looking into this process and building your analysis.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, so basically, if we look at when the hydration break occurs, we can look at like, what were what was the momentum for both teams leading up to the hydration break and then immediately after the hydration break. And we can also compare that to half time and various other breaks during the game and kind of what I did.
00:07:36
Speaker
um which I'll get into probably a little bit more later, was like, look at a bunch of different random splits across the game and say, you know, soccer is just ah such a fluid sport. There's so much change happening all the time. Is this meaningfully different than if you looked at any other random minute split? is Does it just so happen that the game changed and it coincided with a hydration break rather than the hydration break causing the game changing. So um I kind of looked at that. And yeah, so there were kind of two ways that I looked at it. The first way was the three kind of minute bins, which in footy each minute bin is two minutes. So like the six minutes leading up to the break and the six minutes after. And then also comparing it to like something like half time, we can say, well, there was the 22 and a half minutes before this break and the 22 and a half minutes after. um And so that was kind of the second way of comparing them.
00:08:31
Speaker
So when you first you were telling me this beforehand, when you first were looking into this, you were having a little bit of trouble drawing some conclusions. So was there any kind of hurdles that you ran into? Maybe there just isn't enough data available yet? Or what what kind of hurdles did you step into but when you were looking into this stuff?
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, so when I started looking at it, I didn't have, had like, you know, some data, but it wasn't a ton of data. And then I was able to run the analysis again with even more data up until like, you know, the, I think the round of 32 it included. um And then another like really helpful step was Mike Inbergio, who does like all the backend data stuff. He's the one who gave me the data originally. He was able to build like this additional version of momentum that kind of controls for game state, like which team is winning, which team is losing, what the score is. So that was an additional help.
00:09:26
Speaker
But yeah, in the beginning, I was just looking at the raw data. I was just looking at it for a subset of games. And what I was finding was that kind of there wasn't any meaningful difference between the hydration breaks and the kind of random minute splits, right? The kind of random whatever's where the game is just changing because it's changing. And so in my head, the more I thought about the more it kind of made sense. But it also seemed like there was another layer there that I wasn't being captured in this. um Because I think one of the things that stood out to me was
00:09:59
Speaker
The more I thought about it, there really is so many breaks in the game just naturally. um You know, a goalkeeper goes down injured or like yesterday with with Amadou Onana, which was just like many of these are really unfortunate injuries. And also you see the players going to the sideline, having a drink of water, standing around, having a team talk, whatever it may be. And so can you get the same bump from one of those moments, even if it's an injury or even if it's time wasting, whatever it is that you would get from a hydration break? Because meaningfully, what's occurring during that you know two minute break isn't that different. you know One player might be on the ground, but maybe it's the other play the other team's player. So that kind of got my mind turning in terms of like,
00:10:41
Speaker
we treat these as like this really abnormal thing that ah is occurring now in the game when in reality like we know that the the ball is only in play you know 45 minutes out of the 90 minutes or sometimes even as low as 30 minutes out of the 90 minutes just because so many stoppages in play time wasting everything So how much of a difference do those two, three minute breaks, whatever, really impact the game? um And so that's kind of what i was what I was looking at originally and where that kind of like, that there wasn't a clear outcome in terms of what I was looking at. But then, yeah, I was, there was kind of part of my brain that was like, I still think that there's something more here.
00:11:21
Speaker
No, I do think that's interesting. and And to add on just from my perspective on this, it does seem like that time wasting or certain times are shifting towards that hydration break. People are playing harder, but it is also the World Cup, so it's harder to...
00:11:39
Speaker
ah compare that to maybe a mid-season, you know, MLS match versus, you know, something happening where you are playing for your country and it's a knockout. So that is that is really interesting to look at the game state and to compare those stoppages. Because I've often explained to people who are new and getting into soccer that, like,
00:11:58
Speaker
It's a very fluid game. It moves a lot. And the biggest question is always, well, why are they flopping and rolling around on the ground? And I said, well, you know, we don't have timeouts. We we don't have situations where players can catch their breath, like innings or anything like that. So we manufacture those. Players manufacture those. Maybe they want to have, nowadays, the the referees go look at a call, a VAR call. So they're they're laying on the ground, staying there to give the the referees more time. So...
00:12:28
Speaker
That is super interesting. So I want to know. I'm i'm interested to know um what are your conclusions with this? Like where where are we going with this? Should we be fighting the FIFA power and banning these water breaks because they're creating a competitive advantage?
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I looked at it and like I said, the first thing I looked at was how does it compare to halftime? And what I found is that the kind of immediate effect, so looking at those six minutes before and after, the like average difference in terms of the momentum difference between each team, so like what's the average swing in momentum a little bit, was very similar to halftime. So it wasn't a major swing, but it was very similar. However, if you look at like the 22 and a half minutes instead just the six minutes preceding it, and following, um the difference was kind of less than halftime. So what I kind of took away from that was that, okay, hydration breaks are creating a little bit of an immediate change in the same way that halftime does, but it's not creating like a meaningful overall shift in the momentum of the match um over a longer period of time.
00:13:37
Speaker
But when I was
Tactical Advantages of Hydration Breaks
00:13:38
Speaker
kind of looking at that, it seemed that maybe there was some like heterogeneity in terms of like how that was applying to like the actual circumstances like it feels like this this might be true for some games but not for every game um or some moments and not every moment and so what i did was i compared to those like minute splits and so what i found originally again was like the the team that is trailing in terms of momentum, so not necessarily losing, but trailing, um they have higher per minute possession value created after break.
00:14:19
Speaker
after the break But it's less than any other random split in the game that you would take. So on average, teams that better trailing are improving.
00:14:32
Speaker
And the hydration break, the difference wasn't huge, but it actually seemed to lower the extent to which this trailing team could come back into the match. And then again, i was like, this feels wrong. Like this feels counterintuitive to what I have witnessed and to what many people are saying. And like, even i was watching the, um I can't remember which game it was, but the Telemundo commentators are like talking about how this gives trailing teams the advantage after the break. And I was like, okay, I got to keep looking at this. And so what I found is that if you do a cutoff and you say, i only want to look at circumstances where a team is really dominating,
00:15:07
Speaker
So i like I looked at a bunch of different cutoffs. It's about like the 45th percentile and above. And so that comes out around 75%. So if a team has 75% or more of the total kind of possession value going into the break. So let's say they have 75% of momentum, the other team is 25% of the momentum.
00:15:27
Speaker
That is what I would consider dominating a game. And if you look at that coming out of the break, the leading team tends to lose momentum and the trailing team tends to gain a lot of momentum right out of the break and so that was kind of the i guess the smoking gun if you will in terms of like if teams are truly like being dominated then they tend to rebound a little bit out of the break that makes sense so from from my perspective it's the the
00:15:58
Speaker
There's like a percentage increase. So like if the teams are more even, if the game is more even, you see less of a a change. But if you look at the bigger splits, you look at the teams that are dominating. Like I want to reference the game that just happened, which was Argentina versus Egypt in the 70th minute. There's a second half hydration break.
00:16:21
Speaker
There's some substitutions around the 73rd minute and um Argentina end up winning the game with a goal in the 79th, 83rd and 92nd. So the momentum in which Egypt had been, you know, I don't know if they'd been statistically dominating. I haven't really...
00:16:40
Speaker
dove it I haven't dove into the footy app yet, but if you just look at like ah the the, what happened, I guess their goal scoring, it seems as though that was the the switch that needed to be flipped.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, and i'm I'm looking at the footy app right now. And to me, what it looks like is Argentina, we're dominating for pretty much all the game in terms of possession value. But there's this kind of point where Argentina and Egypt are creating a lot at the same time. And that's when Egypt scores their second goal and goes up to zero. And then right after that is the hydration break.
00:17:15
Speaker
And then when they come back, now all of a sudden Egypt is creating far less and Argentina is still creating a lot They're creating more than they were before. And then that kind of leads to what occurred with the with the late comeback, which I was not very happy to see. i mean, but I think that's soccer, right? is like It is in the margins. like the The determining factors, especially at the highest level with the best players, is these small marginal like advantages that you can gain, whether it be a hydration break, whether it be going down and and creating a stoppage, So do you, I mean, i want to let you continue if you have more, more thoughts on this of like, do you think this is impacting the game in, in any kind of way? Like, is that the conclusion is that it's, it's creating an advantage for, for certain teams who are using it. And then secondarily, have you been able to identify specific teams that are using this to a better advantage than others?
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah. So in terms of the specific teams thing, i didn't get that deep into it to to tell you exactly which teams have been benefiting from it more. But I do think that like, I think it's so complex and it's really interesting because if you have those even teams, like what I found is it it doesn't make a huge difference, but like,
00:18:37
Speaker
the even teams, I think so much randomness can happen in three minutes. And when you stop the game for three minutes, well, all of a sudden we're not getting any of that randomness, except we're kind of gaining those three minutes back in added time, which I think is like a really like underappreciated aspect of this because so like like statistically proven that stoppage time has like more xg it has more attacking chances it has more kind of transitional play faster play more dangerous play than in any other point in the match it's why you see like strikers that come on as substitutes tend to have
00:19:17
Speaker
Like if you do the per 90 minutes, they have inflated values compared to starters that are strikers that start games. And that's because so much just happens in the last five minutes of the game in stoppage time. And so I know that it's not exactly like how that works, but from a clock perspective, like you kind of are taking this three minute chunk out of the middle of a half when maybe legs are tired or whatever, and you're putting it at the end of the half when we know that crazy stuff is going to happen.
00:19:42
Speaker
So like, I think that that's just really interesting. And it's also like, Yeah, I don't, there's there's so much complexity to it. And I think that there's a, there's a really interesting article that's by Teodol Football, who, one thing you talked about was like, if you're a really good team, you want to roll the dice more often, you want to create more opportunities for your talent to, like overcome the, you know, the other team who's probably less talented than you. And so like, if you're a really good team, you don't want to hunker
00:20:13
Speaker
And you don't want to like pack it back or or limit the amount of soccer you're playing. You want to play more soccer so that your talent can come out on top over the other team. And I think that like in these circumstances where we see where we don't have soccer for a few minutes or it changes the way that the game is playing out so that we have minutes at the end where we know that crazy stuff is going to happen no matter what. I do think it changes the dynamics. um And I think it just like adds a certain kind of randomness to how these things play out. And, and I think that, yeah, if you look at, if you look at how teams play when they're losing, when they're really far behind, or like really being dominated, the break is helpful.
00:20:53
Speaker
Like just having a little bit of respite, even if you're losing. Like I think the the kind of instinct is to say, oh, we're being destroyed right now. Like maybe we're losing, but we we have ton like, they're really pushing us right now. The instinct would be to say, oh well, we need to like create something. We to relieve this pressure. And like once we kind of get the ball of the field and possess for a little bit, then we'll be able to kind of change the momentum. And maybe that is a way to change the momentum. But I guess what the hydration breaks have shown is that kind of just taking a break and drinking some water is another way to just like get out of it. And then you come back and now the mentality has changed or the momentum has changed or the feeling has changed and you're able to attack differently or you're able to kind of not feel like you're under that pressure anymore.
Player Mentality During Stoppage Time
00:21:40
Speaker
And I'm interested too, you know, and this is not really quantifiable, or maybe it is. there' You can quantify anything if you try hard enough. But like in terms of the reasoning that stoppage time has such higher XG, has such higher like attacking values, is probably a lot to do with like the mental state of players. Like I have this much time left, I'm giving it everything.
00:22:03
Speaker
I'm able to absolutely go and run through a wall for seven minutes. Like I can give everything for seven minutes and this is our last chance. We're just throwing everything at the wall.
00:22:14
Speaker
I'm interested with like the second hydration break, which ah which I feel as though the second hydration break is the one that has been more of a game changer than the first hydration break. It's that like 20 minutes left, you know, it's like almost another like mental mental gear to move to be like, we're getting close to the end of this thing coming out of this break. Like it's it's on, it's it's to the you know pressing down the gas pedal. have Have you been able to look? I mean, you may not have been able to look into that as to the two, but maybe maybe that's like an additional piece of it on the on the mindset side, because it totally makes sense with the stoppage time stuff being, you know, you're shifting three minutes of garbage time basically into the most intense part of the match, which is the final stoppage time.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah. And I think like even in the U S game yesterday, I mean, this was like shades of terrible, but like my feeling was that they began to play a little bit better after the second half hydration break and did have some moments. Like I think Balogun has that shot that Courtois saves after the second half hydration break. And so it is almost of like one last push, like we're 75% of the way there, you know, like, let's just finish it off or let's make a comeback in these last few minutes. And yeah, the Argentina game today is like a great example of that. um,
00:23:35
Speaker
And yeah, like how many times have you seen a team, like as soon as it hits 90 minutes, like they're possessing, they're lobbing the ball into the box. I mean, like even Mexico versus England, like no cross was working, but they were putting in cross after cross after cross. And they were possessing and controlling the game in a way where England's thinking, oh, we just have to hold out for a little bit longer. But now that little bit longer is three minutes longer than it would have been beforehand. And for Mexico, that's three extra minutes that they, you know, have to try to do something. obviously see you know, you're wearing the jersey, they, they didn't do anything. um
00:24:09
Speaker
But yeah, I do think i haven't been able to like really look into it. But that's something that's, I think, worth looking into, because it is, there is like, I guess, I don't know, I feel like the first half hydration break is like, okay, let's everyone, we're gonna take a breather, we're gonna have some water, we're gonna go at it, you know, again, and then the second half hydration break is just,
00:24:30
Speaker
it is It is a lot more about mentality and about what, like, it's less about like, how are we going to make the tactical tweaks maybe and more about like, how are we going to fight in these last 20 minutes or whatever to finish out the game.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'm super interested to see people continue to dig into this. And I think what is more offensive than anything, because the game changes all the time. Like, that's the beauty of soccer is that it's such a fluid game when it comes to rules and the way that we kind of, you know, officiate and and play.
00:25:03
Speaker
The biggest just insult to me is the the ad breaks, turning it into an ad break. It's it's it's despicable. Like the the fact that we're cutting away for an ad break in the middle of a soccer match.
00:25:17
Speaker
The game is gone. The game is gone. that's i mean, even Telemundo who are like, oh, we're we're we're staying for the ad break. It's like, oh, courtesy of Michelob Ultra. Right. you Like a split screen ad. And it's like, OK, guys, I don't know. um I think, that yeah, the game I was watching, they were literally complaining about the hydration breaks and then boom, we're going to go to an ad during the hydration break. um But I do think that like there's something beautiful about the game kind of adapting to incorporate this like foreign object that's been thrown right in the middle of it. Like it is very harsh and like very like weird in the middle of these games to go to this hydration break, this ad break when it, you know, it's in...
00:25:59
Speaker
Mercedes-Benz or wherever, where it's climate controlled, where it's raining, whatever. You're like, why are we doing this? But I do think it's kind of cool how it has like, as much it is it as it is like a corporate driven thing, it has changed the game and players and teams have adapted to it. And not in like a,
00:26:18
Speaker
Like I don't think it's making the game worse.
Debating the Impact of Hydration Breaks
00:26:20
Speaker
I think it is an interesting thing to look at, to talk about, to think about because it completely, it does completely change like how you approach some of these moments in the match. And like even like Pochettino thing with the laptop, like it was really funny and no one knew, like no one had really thought about it beforehand. And now all of a sudden it's a topic of conversation. Now every single coach is like, okay, well let's bring out a laptop, let's bring out a whiteboard, whatever. And so,
00:26:46
Speaker
it's even though it is like no one asked for this it is kind of i think pretty cool to see how it's just becoming part of the game not really you know thanks to fifa or anyone but thanks to just the sport itself Well, I think that's a perfect place to leave it. Kat, thank you so much for coming on. And there is going to be a deep dive article with everything going on on the footy sub stack, which we'll leave in the description as well. But I want to give you the floor as well to promote anything you've got going on um and maybe maybe make a cry to the Lobbing Scorchers vibes based audience on why they should believe in XG and all advanced statistics.
00:27:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're not all, you know, terrible nerds that like don't care about watching the game. We do love the game and that's why we we want to look at it so so in depth. So yeah, you can follow me on Blue Sky. If you want more data stuff for World Cup, I have a ton of every single match has a post match report coming out on Blue Sky. It's automated.
00:27:51
Speaker
It's at MLS stat and then all the ah other MLS games are going to be on there too. um And yeah, when when the article should be on the footy discord so go or footy subsects to go read that and download the app.
00:28:04
Speaker
Amazing cat. Thank you so much. This was amazing. And if you guys enjoyed this, like the video, subscribe to the YouTube channel, rate us five stars, all that good stuff.
00:28:14
Speaker
And we will see you all very soon. Bye.