For the first time in 27 days, there are no men’s World Cup matches to watch on Wednesday.
There are five rest days in this final stretch before the tournament’s winner is crowned at the MetLife Stadium on July 19, with the first on Wednesday marking a quick breather before the quarter-final stage gets under way on Thursday, when France play Morocco.
There are now only two knockout rounds before the final — and the jeopardy, excitement and anticipation are ramping up.
The most recent matches at the last-16 stage had no shortage of drama, with Golden Boot-leader Lionel Messi scoring his eighth goal of the tournament to complete Argentina’s 3-2 comeback victory over Egypt after going 2-0 down. Later on Tuesday, Colombia were eliminated on penalties by Switzerland.
So with an evening suddenly missing the joy and pain of World Cup soccer — what do we do now?
Why has the World Cup paused?
Players need to rest.
Of the 104 scheduled tournament matches, 96 have been played — 92 per cent of the tournament.
France and Morocco — who face each other in the first quarter-final on Thursday — most recently competed on Saturday, in their wins over Canada and Paraguay respectively, leaving just four days to recover.
With the tournament being expanded to 48 teams this year, rest is more important than ever as an extra round was inserted into the schedule and teams that have made it to these latter stages have played five games already.
Mental fatigue, physical strain, miles of travel and heat issues will all start to take their toll.
“You get really tired, but not about the seven or eight games,” Ivan Rakitić told The Athletic. “You get tired because of thinking, preparation, analysis, taking care about yourself, your team-mates, and taking care about other things.”
Luckily for eager fans, most markers for freshness return to baseline within around five days.
Germany’s head of performance Nicklas Dietrich identified “a lot of travel, there are time shifts, there are different climates at different stadiums” as challenges they will have to overcome.
The players have always had these days between games to recover, however, it is just only now that fans will feel them too with fewer matches scheduled as countries are whittled down by half each round.
How does this compare to previous World Cups?
In previous editions of the tournament, there have been similar numbers of rest days despite the fewer teams and matches.
In Qatar 2022, there was an earlier rest day, between the group stage and round-of-16, before groups of two days off following each round thereafter. In the 2018 World Cup in Russia there was an additional rest day before the knockouts, bringing the total to six.
With each of these previous World Cups, the days off were felt earlier in the progression of games, as there was no last-32 stage after the group phase.
What can I watch instead?
The World Cup has paused, momentarily, but the rest of the sporting world keeps spinning.
Even with soccer, the preliminary stages of the Champions League and Conference League for the 2026-27 season have already commenced, while the European under-19 championships are ongoing and the Canadian Championship has resumed.
There are no shortage of other sports, too.
The Athletic has daily coverage here of the Tour de France as it enters its fifth stage. This summer, Jonas Vingegaard and world champion Tadej Pogacar are going head-to-head again, having passed cycling’s greatest title between them for six years.
Dreaming of becoming the first rider outside of Pogacar and Vingegaard to win the Tour since 2019 (Egan Bernal) are the likes of Remco Evenepoel, Juan Ayuso and France’s teenage prodigy Paul Seixas.
Pogacar, the reigning champion, has already won a stage in this year’s Tour (Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images)
Tennis is in full flow too, as Wimbledon on Wednesday will see the quarter-final stage continued across men’s and women’s singles and doubles.
Read more on The Athletic here and follow live coverage here.
Still itching for more sport? Understandable. Explore the newest, and arguably most spectacular yet, Winter Olympic sport — freeriding.
Who plays next?
France will kick off the next round of the World Cup by taking on Morocco on Thursday at 4pm local time (9pm BST) in Foxborough.
Spain will then face Belgium on Friday at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood at midday local time (8pm BST).
Finally, Saturday will host a double header of England vs. Norway in Miami at 5pm/10pm before Argentina vs. Switzerland will draw the round to a close at 9pm/2am.
After that, the semi-finals will be played between two sets of two rest days — on Tuesday July 14 and Wednesday July 15 — before the consecutive days of the third-place play-off (July 18) and the World Cup final (July 19).
