2026 World Cup Lesson: Managing Player Fatigue

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is here!

At the time of writing (June 25th, 2026), the tournament has certainly had its ups and downs. We’ve had some amazing results for underdogs (Curacao drawing with Ecuador, DR Congo drawing with Portugal, and Cape Verde drawing with both Spain and Uruguay) and we’ve also seen some desperately-boring games (England vs Ghana, for example).

In last night’s 6 pm Scotland vs Brazil game in Miami, the temperature was around 82 degrees and humidity also around 80%. Ouch! This brings up a unique issue for this World Cup: how do we take the environmental factors (heat, humidity, dew point, etc) into account when also trying to manage overall player fatigue?

I’ve long said that professional soccer players are often treated more like cattle than human beings.

When I see folks in my office, they are first and foremost, human beings. The orthopedic, musculoskeletal, and biological conditions are important but only when combined with who the person is, activity level, psychology, and social factors. How can you expect to address someone’s knee pain when they consistently sleep 3 hours per night? This is the crux of the biopsychosocial model; we know that people treated in the biopsychosocial model do better in the long run.

It takes a lot of work to treat someone individually and thoroughly in the above model, but it leads to better outcomes and fewer errors, ultimately saving time and money.

Professional soccer players, on the other hand, are not typically treated in the biopsychosocial model. The main reason is MONEY! They want to play as many games as possible to prove their value to their team (their employer) so they can earn their next big-money contract. That means that they’ll force themselves to play through injuries, often with the help of game-day pain-killing injections and steroid injections, among other interventions. Worse yet, the coaching staff, administrative team, and fans (and sometimes even the medical staff!) will encourage the players to do this! Their rationale: “You get paid $5,000,000 per year to play a silly game. You can play through your injury.”

Knowing this, the 2026 World Cup comes at a tricky time. The big domestic seasons are done so players are looking forward to spending some much-needed time with their family on the beach, but oh wait! We have this 5+ week global tournament to play in! No time off for me, despite playing 60+ games this season!

They often come into this tournament having played for 10+ straight months with very little time off; their bodies are tired and minds are exhausted. And now, they’re playing in the heat and humidity of stadia across North America in the hopes of raising the prestigious World Cup trophy. Scotland did not handle this well yesterday, conceding several very sloppy goals to a strong Brazil side, ultimately losing 3-0. That will likely knock them (and their vibrant fans!) out of the World Cup.

The solution? If possible, the solution is to rest players as much as possible. For example, the USA play Turkiye later today in a dead rubber. This means USA will finish 1st in the group no matter the result, and similarly Turkiye will finish in 4th no matter what. It therefore affords the USA the opportunity to leave their starters on the bench to allow their fringe players to play.

Not everyone has this luxury, however. Scotland certainly didn’t yesterday. Those who are unable to provide adequate rest to their players risk future injury for their team. We’ve already seen a few serious injuries this World Cup (broken leg, rolled ankle, muscle strains, etc) and unfortunately, I doubt we’ve seen the end of it.

The ACTUAL solution is to play fewer games so that players have adequate time to rest, especially in this heat and humidity, but this means the game is not growing financially and is thus an unacceptable solution per the powers that be. So I suppose we should all sit back, relax on our couches, and watch the remainder of the tournament hoping we can avoid saying everyone’s 4 favorite words: “I told you so!”