A cold, windy night in Stoke: How weather impacts football

Summary

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The Athletic FC Podcast Summary

Episode Title: "A cold, windy night in Stoke: How weather impacts football"
Date: February 8, 2026
Host: Michael Bailey
Guests: Michael Cox, Connor O’Neill, Mark Carey

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into how weather and broader environmental conditions shape football—on and off the pitch. Inspired by a listener’s question, the panel examines everything from Stoke's notorious blustery nights, to rain’s influence on cards, the science and history of hot World Cups, and how clubs and players adapt to heat, cold, wind, and more. Combining personal anecdotes, big-picture historical context, and new data analysis, the team reveals the often-overlooked but decisive role of the elements in the game.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Does Weather Shape Football More Than We Think?

• Long- vs. Short-term Weather Impacts:
  • Michael Cox distinguishes between climate (long-term) and weather (short-term), citing how both shape national and regional play styles.
  • Example: In Spain, southern teams favor quick, technical football due to heat, while northern (rainier) teams are more direct and physical.
  • “We tend to think about Spain and their weather in a certain way … but it’s also the case within countries.” (Michael Cox, 03:35)
• General Observation:
  • Panel agrees weather is largely ignored in mainstream football discussions but can be hugely influential.

2. Data Deep Dive: Weather’s Direct Influence on Results

• Connor O’Neill’s Research (04:32):
  • Analyzed 12,000+ games tying match data to historical weather (using stadium coordinates, Visual Crossing API, etc.).
  • Strict definition for “cold, windy night”:
    • Cold = below 10°C, Windy = 13+ mph (Beaufort scale), midweek games.
    • Few teams had 10+ games in these conditions, limiting the sample size.
• Findings:
  • Stoke at an Advantage:
    • “Stoke had the highest jump in their points per game … 2.27 points per game at home.” (Connor O’Neill, 05:45)
  • Tottenham & Arsenal Struggled Most:
    • Reinforcing the narrative about southern, technical teams performing poorly in rough conditions.

3. The “Stoke” Myth Confirmed & the Windswept Stadia

• Britannia Stadium’s Design:
  • Open corners allowed wind to whip through, making conditions especially punishing.
  • “I would comfortably say it’s the coldest I’ve been in a football stadium.” (Mark Carey, 07:26)
• Familiarity Breeds Advantage:
  • Ties into discussions on home advantage, as locals are more acclimatized.
• Anecdotes:
  • Example: Gary O’Neill’s red card at Stoke blamed (humorously) on the wind.

4. Wind: The Most Decisive Weather Variable

• Jurgen Klopp’s Take on Wind (09:26, [08:28]):
  • “It was really difficult, really difficult to play football with this wind.”
• Technical Impact:
  • Wind disrupts more than just passes; it hinders communication, positional awareness, and can radically alter set pieces.
  • Gianluca Vialli’s book cited: biggest England/Italy difference = the wind. Arsène Wenger changed training to account for it in England.
  • “Britain is the windiest country in Europe… wind has the biggest impact on what is happening in a match.” (Michael Cox, 11:53)
• Clubs Adapt:
  • Liverpool planted 500+ trees at their new training ground in Kirkby to block wind, after Klopp’s complaints.
• Effect on Tactics:
  • Lighter modern balls amplify wind’s impact.
• Most Wind-Affected Stadiums:
  • Swansea, then Liverpool and Everton (all coastal/northern).
  • No match postponements for wind, unlike for rain or frozen pitches.

5. Rain: Slicker Pitches, More Cards, but Modern Draining Reduces Chaos

• Correlation with Discipline:
  • “Rain correlates with more yellow cards … most yellows in rain: Bernardo Silva, then Fernandinho. That’s because City (and United) have played the most games in rain.” (Connor O’Neill, 17:50)
• Modern Surfaces:
  • Rain less likely to cause postponements or waterlogged pitches due to improved drainage and pre-soaking of pitches for slicker play.
  • “It’s almost a completely artificial surface now … during the match it’s completely slippery.” (Michael Cox, 20:00)

6. Snow and Ice: Disappearing Factors at the Top Level

• Undersoil Heating is the Key:
  • Most Premier League pitches have it; lower leagues/WSL sometimes still face postponements due to frozen pitches.
  • Notable moment: “It costs £750k–£1.3m to install … so for one or two matches a season, probably isn’t worthwhile.” (Michael Cox, 21:46)

7. Soil, Grass, Altitude & the “Invisible” Environmental Variables

• South America’s Unique Surfaces:
  • European players report South American grass bounces differently due to soil; affects game play.
• Bolivia & Altitude Home Advantage:
  • El Alto stadium is 4,150m above sea level; gives huge home advantage due to hypoxia (low oxygen): “Home record: won 5, drew 2, lost 2. Away: won 1, lost 8.” (Mark Carey, 26:09)

8. Weatherproof Players: Who Excels in Any Condition?

• Connor’s “Weatherproof XI”:
  • Subzero specialist: Dimitar Berbatov.
  • Overall hero: Mohamed Salah.
  • Note: List skewed by sample size and north-of-England bias.

9. Cold Feet – Literal and Metaphorical

• Goalkeeping Gaffes in the Cold:
  • Alisson’s double error vs. Man City (Feb 2021, 2°C, 28:21):
    • “Maybe he had cold feet or something. That sounds funny, but it could be.” (Klopp quote via Michael Bailey, 29:09)
  • Instant foot warmers and socks: Players seek technological solutions to cold.

10. Heatwaves, Hot Tournaments, and the Coming 2026 World Cup

• Historical Patterns:
  • Hot World Cups (1970, 1986 Mexico; 1994 USA) produced great football due to tired defenders and technical players shining. Coldest WCs rated poorest on entertainment (33:32).
  • “The four tournaments in winter were among the worst-ranked by ESPN’s list.” (Michael Cox, 32:32)
• Tactical Shifts in Heat:
  • Less pressing, longer passing sequences, more technical play.
  • More subs and cooling breaks: modern rules will help maintain intensity.
• Modern Disruptions:
  • Lightning suspensions and weather timeouts (cooling breaks) already caused 4+ hour games.
• Science:
  • “Athletes can’t digest [absorb] more than 250ml of water every 20 minutes.” (FIFPro via Mark Carey, 39:15)

11. Football’s Seasonal Quirk: Why Play in Winter?

• “Football’s a winter sport because cricket takes up summer … there’s nothing inherent in the sport itself.” (Michael Cox, 40:16)
• MLS and Scandinavian leagues still debate calendar shifts.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On weather bias in football talk:
  • “Nobody ever mentions the weather, as Oasis says. … But clearly [weather] can completely shape the way football is played.” (Michael Cox, 03:01)
• On Stoke’s advantage:
  • “Stoke had the highest jump in their points per game … 2.27 points per game at home.” (Connor O’Neill, 05:45)
• On the impact of wind:
  • “When you watch football at grounds where there aren’t any stands, it can completely disrupt everything.” (Michael Cox, 09:47)
• Wenger’s adaptation:
  • “The first thing I had to get used to … was the weather. Not just the rain or the temperature, but the wind.” (Citing Arsène Wenger, 10:30)
• On rain and yellow cards:
  • “There are more yellow cards and more discipline issues with the rain.” (Connor O’Neill, 17:55)
• On heat creating classic tournaments:
  • “The warmer World Cups are the better ones … three of the six best were in Mexico or the US.” (Michael Cox, 32:32)
• On substitutions:
  • “Substitutes were first introduced at the World Cup in 1970 specifically for the Mexican heat.” (Michael Cox, 38:04)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• 01:36 – Intro: Listener email sparks the episode’s theme
• 03:01 – Climate’s role in shaping national and regional style
• 04:32 – Connor’s data dive: designing a “cold, windy night in Stoke” study
• 05:45 – Data reveals Stoke’s tangible home advantage in adverse weather
• 07:26 – Personal accounts of the Britannia’s punishing environment
• 09:26 – Jurgen Klopp complains about wind: soundbite and discussion
• 11:53 – Wind shown as the single most disruptive in-match weather variable
• 13:49 – Weather and set pieces: lighter balls, windy stadiums, and long throws
• 14:05 – Swansea crowned as the windiest PL stadium
• 17:50 – Rain raises yellow cards, but modern surfaces mitigate chaos
• 21:46 – Snow/ice disappearing from the top due to undersoil heating
• 23:27 – Soil and grass differences across continents: South America vs. Europe
• 24:02 – Bolivia and altitude: science of home advantage
• 27:26 – “Weatherproof” players: Berbatov, Salah among the best in all conditions
• 28:21 – Alisson’s cold-weather calamity: specific example of technical decline
• 32:16 – Hot tournaments: World Cup history shows warmth breeds classics
• 37:13 – Heat and modern solutions: cooling breaks and tactical resets
• 40:16 – Why football is a winter sport: the shadow of cricket

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Conclusion

This episode vividly illustrates how weather and environment—often afterthoughts in punditry—are defining features of football strategy, history, and performance. The panel combines hard data, literature, personal experience, and tactical analysis to answer the classic football cliché about “a cold, windy night in Stoke” and delivers actionable insights on how clubs, players, and governing bodies adapt (or fail to). For those interested in the fine margins that decide football matches and legacies, this episode reveals just how elemental the beautiful game really is.

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For more questions or to suggest topics, email [e-mail].

Transcript

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[Michael Cox]

The athletic fc.

[Michael Bailey]

Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC Tactics Podcast. I'm Michael Bailey. This week we're diving into the world of weather. How did the elements impact what happens on the pitch? From the rainy cold nights at Stoke to the scorching heat of the 1994 World cup in the US we will discuss it all. And for this one, we have a trio who can definitely perform in a cold studio in London. It's Michael Cox.

[Michael Cox]

Hello Michael.

[Michael Bailey]

Making his Tactics debut, Connor o'. Neill.

[Connor O'Neill]

Hi Michael.

[Michael Bailey]

And Mark Carey.

[Mark Carey]

Hi Michael.

[Michael Bailey]

Once again, this is an episode inspired by one of you guys. Our lovely listeners. Jody emailed us. You should know the address by now, but in case you've forgotten, it's TacticsPod. [e-mail] Jody says, I'm wondering if you consider doing an episode about football and the weather. Yes, Jody, we would. How have varied climatic conditions shaped national footballing styles, tactics, squad building strategies, etc. How, if at all, has the advent of data analytics and the development of new technologies taken account of the weather and altered the approach of players, managers and and directors of football. Well, Request accepted, Jody. Mr. Michael Cox, I referenced Stoke City in the intro and the windy conditions at the ground formerly known as the Britannia Stadium. Does the weather feel like something we ignore for the most part to you?

[Michael Cox]

Yeah, probably. Nobody ever mentions the weather, as Oasis says. Yeah, I'm obsessed with the weather. I mean, in basic terms, I have about five or six weather apps on my phone. But also in relation to how it affects football matches, I think there's long term factors and short term factors. I mean, the short term is probably more obvious if it's windy, if it's raining, if it's, you know, if there's a sudden heat wave, I think that has an obvious impact, but I think just the long term climatic conditions clearly have an impact on footballing styles. And that is the case between countries. But I think it's also the case within countries. I mean, we tend to think about Spain and their weather in a certain way, but I think when you really count to Spanish football, there's a kind of common belief that in the south, where the weather's really hot, they play quite nice, quick, technical football, and in the north, they can get incredibly rainy. Of course, particularly during the football season, the football is traditionally a bit more direct and a bit more brutal and more based around kind of physicality. So, yeah, I think the weather and the climate, which as my old geography teachers would say, are two very different things, short term and long term, I think they can completely shape the way football is played.

[Michael Bailey]

Fabulous stuff. Luckily for us, Connor has done loads of the work for this podcast already. Now, for. For your application for a job at the Athletic, Connor, you actually gathered loads of data on the impact of weather on football. I mean, tell us how you went about doing this and your key findings. Because even like the effort to marry together football and weather, I'd love to know how that came about.

[Connor O'Neill]

Yeah, it was quite a lot more work than I had bargained for at the start. It was born out of circumstance. So I was doing, I think, second, third stage, my athletic application. And Storm Darragh was in the uk, which had postponed Everton versus Liverpool. So it was literally almost like corny moment from a badly scripted TV program where I'm looking outside pensively and there's a eureka moment. But then I realized I had to get over 12,000 games. Their kickoff times and the coordinates of the stadiums involved the longitude and latitude. So with all that information, I inputted each one into a weather service, historical weather service application called Visual Crossing. And that would output the temperature, closest kickoff time, the precipitation in millimeters and the wind speed. Now, it wasn't like it wouldn't be exact exact, but it's pretty accurate just from doing some, like, cursory cross references. It would basically get the closest available weather stations on that date, on that time, and kind of triangulate what it thought was the weather around the stadium. So that was how I managed to pull it all together.

[Michael Bailey]

So let's get to the bones of it. Were Stoke really at an advantage on cold, windy nights?

[Connor O'Neill]

Yeah, I always think we like when data challenges our biases, but it's even better when it confirms what we subjectively think. And, yes, they were. So I had to kind of be a bit strict with the criteria here because I think over the years it's been a wet, windy night and so cold, windy night. But to actually get a reasonable amount of games, I had to limit it to cold, which I defined as under 10 degrees, windy, which was 13 miles an hour, which is the entry on the Beaufort scale for a moderate breeze. And then obviously midweek. So there wasn't actually that many games. Like, I think only 15 teams had 10 or more games involved in those conditions. But Stoke had the highest jump in their points per game of all those teams. They were 2.27 points per game at home. So, yeah, it did confirm what we all suspected. And a nice other result of the data on the opposite side of the scale. Tottenham and Arsenal were the worst performing.

[Mark Carey]

And Arsenal historically did struggle at Stoke specifically, didn't they? I know there was a whole bunch of factors as to why, but that was kind of the narrative that Arsene Wenger didn't like taking his sides to any team where Tony Pulis was the manager.

[Connor O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Michael Cox]

And I think I'm right in saying that when Stoke won the Premier League, arsenal had a 100% record in the home games. So it really was the away fixtures. It wasn't the way Stoke played in particular, it was the trips to Stoke. I think the only one that they won was actually the one where Aaron Ramsey got a very bad broken leg. Even the victory was not a happy trip for them.

[Michael Bailey]

Who here has been to the Britannia Stadium from when I've been? It is a kind of unique place in terms of how the elements are affected by it.

[Mark Carey]

Yeah, I went to see Stoke against West Bromwich Albion. It must have been about 2010, maybe. Trying to think now the exact date, but I remember and there's photographic evidence of how wrapped up I was, of just how blisteringly cold. Not just because we're doing this podcast, but I would comfortably say it's the coldest I've been in a football stadium. And I think it is because they have, they don't have or they didn't have joined up stands from each of the four corners, which allowed more exposure to the elements, I suppose, which definitely was the case. It is interesting to. To have found out that in 2017 they filled one of their corners of the ground, the southeast corner, in order to sort of increase the capacity, increase the stadium attendance. And as a consequence, or not as a consequence, but maybe correlation might sometimes be causation. They were relegated shortly after. So maybe the I suppose speaks to Connor's point that actually using the elements to their advantage was hugely beneficial. And then once part of that advantage was taken away, so is their success on the field.

[Michael Bailey]

It's quite a high up stadium as well. I found that the wind would just whip, as you say, whip through the gaps and then just whip around the stadium. I never once remember being warm there. No matter what time of year it was, it was just a really punishing ground. And I guess much like our podcast from a couple of weeks ago, you start getting into the fact of home advantage being a familiarity with the conditions that you've got, which obviously then makes it so much harder for teams sort of stepping into that environment and whenever they rock up. My other moment, and I don't know if it was affected by the wind, but I remember seeing Gary Barry O' Neill run 50 yards toward 20 yards towards the halfway line to go through the back of a Stoke player and get sent off just in front of the dugouts for no apparent reason. When Norwich were winning and they lost that game and got relegated, I would have probably blamed the wind that day, to be honest. And everything else. Speaking of the wind, I mean, how does wind influence tactics? It's a great question and we can ask this very question of Jurgen Klopp.

[Mark Carey]

I spoke when I came here a few times about the wind and everybody was a little bit like laughing today. It was really difficult, really difficult to play football with this wind.

[Michael Bailey]

Yes, that was Klopp bemoaning the wind after their League cup exit at the hands of Southampton in 2017. How much can wind impact the movement of the ball, Michael?

[Michael Cox]

Yeah, I think it's a massive factor and I've been obsessed with this for so long. Like my Kingstonian mates, if any of them are listening I almost celebrated when Klopp said this about the win because I was just obsessed with it for many years, Many years. And when you watch football at grounds where there basically aren't any stands, it can completely disrupt everything. And I think it's not like people just think, oh, it's windy. When I used to play as a kid, I was windy. I'll keep the ball on the deck. But it's not just that it will impact the ball in midair. I think it almost changes everything. I think it changes the role of the ball. I think it changes. Level of communication between players can be really difficult. I think at times it can actually be quite disorientating as well, just like knowing your position on the pitch. And I remember this is probably the book that I cite the most on this podcast. But Gianluca Viale and Gab Marcotti's book the Italian job from about 20 years ago has a great section about why English football. Well, the whole book is about why English football is different from Italian football. And there's a great section about the weather. They use data to show that Italy compared to England is not that much warmer and it's not that much drier, but the big difference is the wind. And Viale then speaks to a couple of people, including Arsene Wenger, who says, yeah, the first thing I had to get used to when came to England was the weather. Not just the rain or the temperature, but the wind. And he says that he felt obliged to kind of create training drills about constant movement because other otherwise players just get cold. And I think there's, I think it's Capello as well, Fabio Capello before he became England manager. And Cappello's saying that he did a coaching course in Scotland where he tried to just take the drills he used in Italy and Scotland. He realized it just doesn't work in these conditions. You need to completely change everything. And of course again, there's a short term impact of that, but it's also a long term impact. And I think, you know, whenever you think of even just PE lessons when you were a kid, I just think of the wind. And Britain is the windiest country in Europe. You know, it is a, is a genuine issue that is relatively specific here. And again, this is where Connor's article comes into it. But you know, Connor found that looking at wind and rain and temperature, it's wind. Of the three factors where statistically it has the biggest impact on, on what is happening in a match.

[Mark Carey]

It's interesting that Jurgen Klopp was the one to say it as well. If it was in 2017 he wouldn't have been there quite that long. But thinking about within the country as well, there's certain areas that windier than others and you think about Liverpool in the northwest, it being quite there being quite a strong westerly wind as a coastal city that Liverpool actually tried to combat this not necessarily in the stadium but in the new training ground that they had. So they moved to the AXA training ground in Kirby in I think the end of 2020. And to go with it because it was quite an open space, they added I think 500, maybe even more tre to try and protect against the wind because they couldn't have training sessions in the same way that they could in the previous training ground because it was so disrupted by the wind. You think about the communication and the ability to just instill your typical sessions. So clearly it was something that was a bugbear of Klops early on and then what, three and a bit years later he was making sure that they didn't suffer from that on a week to week basis because knowing the conditions in the northwest of England, pretty strong when it comes to the wind.

[Michael Bailey]

St. Mary's another ground right on the coast as well. And I know it's felt pretty windy whenever I've been in general, does the wind have a greater impact on the ball because the balls are lighter now than they used to be?

[Michael Cox]

That probably is a factor. I hadn't really considered that. But yeah, I mean, you know we've been speaking a lot this season about set pieces and I mean as I've said I am a little bit obsessed with wind. I've got an app that specifically shows wind. Actually it's used a lot by like wind surfers and stuff but it's Andy for cycling. Anyway, before Brentford's matches when Michael Coyote's been banging it in, I've kind of zoomed in on the G Tech stadium to work because usually the wind is coming in Britain, usually the wind's coming from the southwest. So there's a certain end that is more like you're more likely to be under pressure from Michael Coyote's throws than the other end. Probably don't need to get in that much detail but yeah, I'm really obsessed with it. I think it's a massive factor.

[Connor O'Neill]

Well, actually speaking of Coyote, the strongest variable it was associated with was throw in. So you can see how that feeds into direct teams like Brentford and then.

[Michael Bailey]

Rory Delap to round off this section on wind, Conor, what is the windiest Premier League stadium.

[Connor O'Neill]

So of the 51 clubs to play in the Premier League since its inception in 1992, Swansea have had the windiest home games, which kind of makes sense with their location as a coastal team and generally does track with either being by the sea or up north. So other examples of teams that are in the top five include Liverpool and Everton.

[Michael Cox]

And I guess Everton's new ground, albeit stands, are pretty steep, but I mean, that is very exposed on kind of where the, where the Mersey kind of joins the sea.

[Mark Carey]

Yeah.

[Michael Cox]

And I think the thing to maybe the other thing to point out is that maybe less so at Premier League, but at lower league levels, if there's an extraordinary amount of rain, the game will be off. And if the temperatures are really, really cold, the pitch will probably be frozen, it'll be off, but there's not really any provision for wind. I mean, unless it's like, you know, a tornado. And there's issues with the, you know, concerns about the stadium. Like players just have to play in extreme wind more so than extreme rain or extreme cold temperatures. So it's, you know, I do think it kind of gets overlooked. And also it's one of those things that sometimes when you're there is when you really realize, you know, on TV it doesn't look that bad. And then you go, and it's really windy.

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[Michael Bailey]

Connor, you also found that rain correlates with more yellow cards.

[Connor O'Neill]

Yeah, it's weak enough correlation, but it's still there. I think it anecdotally aligns with what you'd expect, you know, underfoot a bit more slippy. I do think that referees are a bit more lenient to this, but overall it does result in more yellow cards. And again, there's a northern aspect to this. So most yellow cards during reign is Bernardo Silva, second is Fernandinho and that's because City behind Man United have played the most Premier League games in the rain. But yeah, there is a. There are more yellow cards and more discipline issues with the rain.

[Michael Cox]

And interesting in Conor's article that's the only thing that really stands out from rain, right? I mean there's a kind of slight fall and other stuff, but the yellow cards in rain is the kind of one of the more obvious standout things.

[Connor O'Neill]

Yeah, I think teams keep it on the deck a bit more which might be to do with, you know, it's easier to zip passes along. But yeah, rain was the only one that had like a somewhat stronger correlation.

[Michael Cox]

I feel that often when there is a yellow Card after kind of real classic sliding tackle. The commentators always say, kind of the referees have got to take that into account. But do they have to? Is it not the player's job to take that into account and the referee's job just to kind of officiate the game as normal? And, yeah, I always think it's just part of part of the game. If you get it wrong, then I.

[Connor O'Neill]

Do remember Bruno Fernandes got a red card against Tottenham that it wasn't rain induced, but he slipped and then they overturned it. So there is kind of some inbuilt leniency for it.

[Michael Bailey]

I mean, it's hard to resist producing a massive sliding tackle when it's really wet, isn't it? I mean, that is the thing you're going to. You're going to do when you. Can we talk about the rainfall? I guess there's a happy medium, isn't there, these days, in terms of too much rainfall? The pitch will become heavy and waterlogged. Right amount, as we said, it makes the ball travel along the turf, which is what most clubs. Michael, will want anyway. Like, this whole situation would be so much. It would be completely different, say, 30, 40 years ago. It feels like the pitchers are able to deal with rainfall much better than they used to be.

[Michael Cox]

Yeah, I mean, I almost think when we talk about rainfall, we ignoring the main issue, which is that teams absolutely soak their pitches before games. I mean, it's almost a completely artificial surface now, and they're not, you know, they're not watering that to grow the grass. They're watering it so that during the match it's completely slippery. And I must say I don't disagree with that because I think in general it makes for better passing, for quicker games, it's more entertaining, et cetera. But you do sometimes have these debates always seem to happen with Guardiola's Barcelona, where they go away somewhere and, you know, Xavi Hernandez usually was saying, oh, they didn't water the pitch for three or four days and it was bone dry. That is the natural circumstances in Spain. If somewhere doesn't have rain for four days, that's standard and that's the pitch you're gonna play on. And okay, it can't go to an extreme extent. And I think dry pitches can be quite dangerous as well. But, you know, this idea, you know, I think they get watered kind of like five times in the three hours leading to kickoff. I mean, it's a completely artificial thing. And you've had a debate now and it goes back to the set piece thing about whether players should be allowed to use towels to drive the ball and obviously that helps you get a bit of distance and sometimes you think, well that is complet. But again, if you see a ball that comes off a pitch, you wouldn't. I mean it's quite hard to catch it, it's quite hard to pick it up. So I don't blame players who want to use towels to actually get some kind of purchase on the ball. So yeah, I mean rainfall is rainfall, but it often the rainfall doesn't contribute to the slipperiness of the pitch anywhere near as much as, you know, the team's actually watering it.

[Michael Bailey]

Okay, let's expand our precipitation to include snow. And what the heck, let's add some ice in too. Remember the days when games used to go ahead and lines were drawn through the snow for the pitch markings? It doesn't happen anymore. Game's gone. Michael?

[Michael Cox]

Yeah, I remember a game a few years ago between Liverpool and Leicester. I don't know whether you remember this, that was played on a really kind of icy pitch and it was quite fun because you could see the trail mark of the ball as it went across. It looked quite nice. Yeah, I mean in general a lot of or I think almost all Premier League pitchers have undersoul heating. Now you still get postponements in the lower leagues and it's been a big issue in the WSL the last few years because a lot of MU's are kind of lower league grounds that don't have undersoil heating. I was at a Chelsea Liverpool game in a WSL about three years ago that was postponed or abandoned, I should say after about eight minutes because the pitch was just too icy. And a lot of people said, well, why is there not undersoil heating? But it's quite a complex thing. I mean one is extremely expensive. Our colleague Charlotte Harper did an article on the back of that game and found that if you're building a new pitch with underso heating, it costs about £750,000. And to put it in an existing pitch probably costs about 1.3 million pounds, which is a huge amount of money. And also it's not just a one off thing. I think basically you kind of, if you have it, you kind of have to keep it running to a certain extent. And whoever's owning, whoever's in charge of that ground would have to kind of pay to keep on using the, the undersoul heating. So if Chelsea were to move out from King's Meadow, which is a, you know a potential situation in the future, then whoever took over the ground, if they did, would then it would be more expensive for them. So for maybe one or two matches a season tops, it probably isn't really worthwhile. So yeah, hasn't been an issue, I don't think as much in recent years and I think when it has, it's often been matches postponed because of kind of surrounding roads and health and safety issues around fans getting to the ground rather than the actual pitch itself.

[Michael Bailey]

Now, Michael, I've got a note here. Let's just go straight for it. You want to talk about soil.

[Michael Cox]

Different climate affects the soil that you can have and of course the type of soil you can have affects the grass. And one notable thing I've always thought about is that when European players go and play in South America, which doesn't have to happen that often, you know, usually it's for a World cup every four years, not often you'd get even international friendlies there. But they often seem to comment that the grass is different in South America and the ball bounces slightly differently. I've never played in South America, so I can't comment myself, quite understand in what way it's different, but it seems the grass is different.

[Mark Carey]

It's interesting Michael mentioned about South America because it speaks to something that I found quite interesting in terms of altitude, which I suppose is. I mean, Michael will be able to say better in terms of climate versus weather. I'm going to call this kind of conditions more broadly, but I think it speaks to the general conversation that, that we're having, specifically Bolivia, which many people will probably know about, but in terms of their international stadium and how much it's been an advantage to them from an altitude perspective. So they moved stadiums, I think this is a good few years ago now, but they moved to a stadium, El Alto and it's essentially, it's located 4,150 meters above sea level and they were sort of struggling internationally in the years that preceded this and have significantly improved their performances and results as a consequence. And it all comes down to the, I suppose the oxygen levels in the air, the higher the altitude, it can affect players fitness. It causes a significant reduction in what's known as VO2 max, which is essentially how much maximum oxygen you can take at any one point. And for those who aren't acclimatized, it can really affect player performance. So this reduced oxygen pressure leads to, from the reading that I've done, it said that it leads to lower aerobic power, get fatigued Far quicker and you can cover far less distance. So it did really affect a lot of the sort of the performances. It actually again, my reading suggests that it makes it hard for the goalkeepers to gauge the trajectories of the shots as well because the ball moves in a different way. So it showed that they can use weather, climate, conditions, whatever to their advantage. And it was interesting to see then how teams kind of combat that. And there's kind of two ways it can go about it because again, from my reading it suggests that there's a physiological window for teams to either arrive weeks in advance to get acclimatized or within genuinely a few hours. It says under six hours. I don't think there's going to be too many international team's gonna come six weeks or five weeks in advance. They're just gonna have to turn up, try and get as much out of the game as they can within a couple of hours and then get out of there. Because these conditions do massively affect player performance.

[Michael Cox]

Just to underline their performance. I mean, Bolivia have qualified for the interconfederation playoff. Obviously in South America you play the other nine teams in South America, their home record was 1:5, drew 2 and lost 2. Their away record was 1:1 and lost 8. I mean, it's just a stagger. The good thing for Bolivia is that their playoff which will be against Suriname and then if they go through to the final, that will be against Iraq. The good news for them is that these matches will take place in Guadeloupe in Mexico, which is around 500 meters above sea level, which I think is probably enough to have an impact. It's not Bolivia levels, but I do think 500 meters above sea level is fairly substantial. So yeah, I think they will get to the World cup and I expect they might not be that good unless indeed their games are in Mexico, which I haven't checked, but clearly they're going to get there because of altitude alone.

[Mark Carey]

I would suggest and very much speaks to the previous episode we'd done very recently on Home Advantage. So a nice little virtuous circle there.

[Michael Bailey]

Conor, if I can throw this back to you. In your piece you actually came up with a list of players who perform well across all types of weather. So like the top weather performance performers. Regardless. Can you enlighten us on that?

[Connor O'Neill]

Yeah, I think this is probably the least scientific part of the piece because naturally the subset of players who've played in a lot of games under extreme conditions is pretty small. But it threw some fun results. Still, such as Berbatov has the highest goal scorer in sub zero temperatures, which kind of plays into his icy cool demeanour. But Salah was someone who just stood out across conditions. Kind of just speaking to his general excellence when looking at goals per game, he kind of stood out. But again, this was kind of very biased towards players who have played in the north of England. So Isaac was quite high as well.

[Michael Bailey]

How I want to go back to the cold and the snow and the icy conditions and. And how they impact tactics and performance. And returning to a Liverpool theme, listen to this comedy of errors from goalkeeper alisson in a 41 defeat against Manchester City in February 2021. David Silver Roll More central.

[Michael Cox]

Alison, believe it.

[Mark Carey]

Hoping that all Brazilians can play with.

[Michael Cox]

The ball at their feet. Oh, and he's now kicked it away to Foden. He's having a nightmare spell here. The Liverpool goalkeeper Foden still going. And it's two one, Manchester City and Gundogan in on the spot again. But it's a catastrophe for Alisson. You may have heard that carriage yelp.

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[Michael Cox]

Oh, Alison's giving it away again. This really could finish the game off. Raheem Sterling. They're punching the air down in the city dugout and Alisson looks skywards and then hangs his head. He's had an absolutely disastrous couple of minutes here.

[Michael Bailey]

Two bad mistakes from the goalkeeper there and some great ooze from Jamie Carragher on co commentary. I think we could also pick out the. The fake crowd noise in the COVID era with no, no supporters inside the stadium after the game. Klopp said, I don't know. There is not a real explanation there. Maybe he had cold feet or something. That sounds funny, but it could be. For what it's worth, the Temperature was approximately 2 degrees in Liverpool at the time of kickoff that day. Are we having that as a reason?

[Michael Cox]

Michael, do your feet get frozen? I think they probably do, yeah. I think especially if you're standing around doing nothing. I do think it is more difficult to play technical football in cold temperatures. I just think your body just doesn't. Doesn't function as well and your feet certainly come into that.

[Mark Carey]

I also looked into this about the having cold feet and how players do sometimes beyond just having an extra pair of socks. Do sometimes think of more scientific ways to combat this. And I've seen online in many available stores you can find them yourself that you can get instant foot warmers. I'm just gonna read out essentially what it is. They're air activated disposable heating pads that you can use for sport. It provides up to eight hours of warmth in cold conditions and it uses an exothermic oxidization process. Essentially, when you open a pouch, iron powder oxidizes and it creates what they call a consistent soothing heat. So players, I think they genuinely do this sometimes. We'll try and think of ways to combat it and we'll use science to try and overcome any cold feet rather than just putting an extra pair of socks on.

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[Michael Bailey]

Covered wind, rain, the cold, snow and ice. What about when it's hot? This is obviously relevant to the upcoming World cup in the usa, Mexico and Canada. Were there any learnings, Michael, from the 1994 edition in the US?

[Michael Cox]

Yeah, I mean that was very, very hot. I, I think actually, I mean I've been going through and looking at all the World Cups in turn, and particularly the World cup winners. And I think there is quite an interesting pattern overall because as a general rule, the warmer World Cups are the better ones. I mean, there's been two World Cups in Mexico before 1970 and 1986. And I think they're held up as two of. I mean, 1970, probably the best team performance in Brazil, 1986, probably the best individual performance in Maradona. But I tried to find some correlation. So, I mean, I didn't do as advanced work as Connor, in part because finding data going back to 9:30 was quite tough. But I basically got the kind of. Of the median city geographically for each World cup and got the current average temperature in the relevant month. So obviously, again, the temperatures might be different nearly 100 years on, but I use modern data. And then I used an article on ESPN that basically ranked all the World Cups. It was the best ranking I could find of all the World Cups. And the four tournaments that were played in winter conditions were among the bottom eight tournaments in those ESPN rankings, if that makes sense. So 1930 in Uruguay, 1962 in Chile, 1978 in Argentina and 2010 in South Africa. They were the coldest because they were in the Southern Hemisphere and they were generally regarded as quite bad tournaments. And the six best tournaments in that ranking, which were 82 in Spain, 70 in, 86 in Mexico, 2006 in Germany, 98 in France, and 94 in the U.S. they were all played in warmer than average climates. And of course, three of those six were played in the US or Mexico, which is where the games are gonna take place this summer. I don't wanna be kind of too blase about this because I think there are obviously genuine health issues. I mean, the temperatures in Texas in particular seem absolutely absurd. I'm not really sure how you can walk around in those temperatures, let alone play a decent game of football. And of course, there's other things. Humidity. I think a lot of people who live in those places will say it's about the humidity as much as the temperatures. But as a very general rule, I think the warmer World Cups have been the good ones and the cold ones have been rubbish.

[Mark Carey]

I wonder why that is. Tactically, is it that maybe teams are more likely to hold onto the ball and pass it for longer sequences. You think of the Brazil, the famous goal. It comes from such a long passing sequence that you think, okay, or maybe even more shots from distance because they don't want to work the ball into more of an advanced area because maybe fatigue could set in. Those sorts of factors.

[Michael Cox]

I think the first one's a big factor. I think 1970, there were so many reports that basically players didn't have the physical capacity to press. And you can see that particularly with the fourth goal scored by Carlos Alberto in the last 10 minutes of the World cup, the Italy players just can't run. And I think in isolation, obviously that looks pretty daft, but that's how the tournament was. And a lot of people at the time were saying, well, this is good, this is, you know, the, the technical, good quality players have come to the fore, not just the players who run around destroying things. I should say a bit of a caveat to my historical World cup thing. I didn't include Qatar in this because the stadiums were air conditioned. And I think it was just a kind of completely different factor. In fact, the stadium was actually quite cold. They were so air conditioned, they're actually quite cold. So, yeah, I'm not sure how, whether that plays into that or not because of the training was different. But anyway, Qatar 2022 isn't included in what I just said.

[Mark Carey]

Well, throwing it forward to this summer, I know that Atlanta's stadium in the States is air conditioned. I think they can put a roof on it. I'm not entirely sure about the other stadiums in the U.S. but there's not many of them. And I think looking back to last summer of the club World cup is a good kind of indication of maybe how things are going to go in terms the heat and the conditions more generally. And I think one of the factors when you think about, yeah, maybe the humidity or the general conditions is lightning and how much that affected things. And there was quite a lot of disruption and suspension of games because of the threat of storms and genuine safety concerns for the players. But to what we were speaking about before the fans more generally, the most notable one was Chelsea against Benfica. It was after 85 minutes, so only five minutes of normal time to go. They suspended the game. In total, the game lasted for four hours and 39 minutes because the disruption and the suspension of that game lasted for a good couple of hours. I thought what was interesting in that is that it looked, and I think this is what Enzo Maresca said after the game was that they were 85 minutes through the game. Chelsea were, I think, one up at the time. They were sort of cruising into the final five minutes of the game. Then the suspension occurred, they came back out and Benfica ended up equalizing it. It took it two extra time. Chelsea went on to win that game, but the point nevertheless remains that it completely halted the flow and the momentum of the game, such that actually those remaining five minutes plus extra time were kind of a game in and of themselves or in and of itself.

[Michael Bailey]

The Other thing we're going to have, Connor, with a tournament in hot conditions are cooling breaks. We've had them in like summer games as well and other instances where basically both teams get a. Get a break for some drinks halfway through each half and which must impact how games are being played and how things are managed around those situations.

[Connor O'Neill]

I think so. I think more momentum than anything else. The same way the end of a half is considered a good time to score because you can kind of reset for the second one. But I was looking as well. A part of that is not only are there cooling brakes, but I think the 5 sub rule makes a lot more manageable than it would have been. That 1970 final only had two substitution rules for Italy. So I think the combination of the five subs and the cooling brakes means we're going to have a bit more disruptive games, but it will help the squads manage the extreme temperature a bit better than they could.

[Michael Cox]

And worth pointing out that, I mean, substitutes were brought into the World cup for the first time specifically for that tournament. There were no subs in 1966, and everyone's so worried about the heat in Mexico that that's why they could bring in two subs. And originally it was going to be just a temporary thing for Mexico. Of course, it never happens that way. Once you get used to having two subs, people said, yeah, that's how we're going to do it. But it was quite interesting because managers hadn't really encountered this before and there was lots of conflicting ways about how to do it. Whether you should just kind of schedule your substitution so players knew they were going to come off, or whether you would actually wait to see who looked tired and then you would bring them off. So it's quite interesting. There's a very good book about basically all the tactics used at World Cup 1970, and half of it just focuses on the substitutes. What is this? How do we use them? It's great.

[Mark Carey]

Well, I suppose like substitutes and cooling breaks in general, as you say, it can. It can shift momentum, but I do think there's a. There's a huge tactical element of it. And as you say, Michael, if there are four quarters, there is just two more opportunities for the manager to get the players in a bit of a huddle and try and change things a little bit tactically. Whether it is shape, personnel would be obviously more from substitutions, but I do think that would massively play a factor in it also from a health perspective as well. I was looking at this on the Thief Pro Website, which is an organization on behalf of professional footballers and their advice on cooling breaks. I think for the summer ahead, the science behind it, they said that it's worth noting that athletes can't digest more than 250 milliliters of water every 20 minutes. So their suggestion was actually from a safety or a scientific perspective, to have it every 15 minutes. So to have 15, 30, 45 for the halftime, then 60, 75, that wouldn't actually work from a spectacle perspective. But yeah, it's putting everything together from what's the best for the safety of the players and what's the best for the spectacle, what's the best for the game? It's all in the melting pot for why cooling breaks are valuable, but also maybe not necessarily best for those watching.

[Michael Cox]

So technically speaking, does one digest water? I've never, I've never heard of that.

[Mark Carey]

Their word was digest, I suppose. Process.

[Michael Cox]

Absorb. Absorb, yeah, yeah, I've never heard of digesting waters before. I'm not calling into question scientific merits.

[Mark Carey]

Of a beef pair on the phone.

[Michael Cox]

Yeah, you kind of take it for granted that football's a winter sport, but the only reason it's a winter sport really is because the dominant sport in England in the 19th century was cricket. And this basically became, well, what we're going to do when the pitchers are too wet to play cricket, we'll play a bit of football. And gradually everywhere basically fell into line. But if you were just designing it from scratch, I don't know whether you would make it a winter sport. You might make it going through the summer. And I just think it's quite funny that, I mean, I think MLS is going to shift in a couple of years from being calendar year season to a our season, if you like, because it just works because you basically just have to fall everywhere, eventually falls in line with everywhere else. And they always have debates about whether they're going to do the same in the Scandinavian place, Sweden and this kind of thing. But it basically all goes to the fact that cricket is a summer sport. You know, that is why the global footballing calendar works this way. And in another world you would have a kind of, of, I don't know, February to November season and the World cup would be played in December like it was four years ago. But yeah, that's, that's obviously taking a very wider lens look at the whole thing.

[Michael Bailey]

Well, I think that is all we have time for today, so a huge thank you to Michael Connor, Mark and producer Mike and as always, please do send us your thoughts and topic suggestions in an email to [e-mail] we love hearing from you. We will see you again very soon and in the meantime, enjoy the weather and the football.

[Michael Cox]

The Athletic FC. Par le tu.

[Connor O'Neill]

Par L if you've.

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