sport news MARK CLATTENBURG: The conversation over 60-minute matches is one football ... trends now
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Forget ‘Fergie Time’. It’s ‘FIFA Time’ that has taken over this World Cup.
I’ve had managers screaming at me because of the minutes I’ve added on to the end of games, Sir Alex Ferguson included. There was even one match when he hammered me for adding too many minutes — in Manchester United’s 6-1 loss to Manchester City in October 2011.
It was 3-1 when full-time neared and Fergie wanted the match to end because he could explain that scoreline in his press conference. City then scored three times late on and he blamed me for leaving him in an impossible position!
We have regularly seen double digits added on at the end of halves during the World Cup
Managers like Sir Alex Ferguson would often express their fury with too much added time
We’ve become used to seeing double-digit stoppage times in Qatar. Despite this, the ‘ball in play’ times have still been sub-60 minutes in most matches. England-Iran saw the ball in play for 55:27, for example. Qatar-Ecuador: 50:51. Argentina-Saudi Arabia: 52:35. Germany-Japan: 58:47. Portugal-Ghana: 57:52.
Those ‘ball in play’ times are
