by Sean O'Connor
With the World Cup drawing ever closer, much of the build up to Brazil has been dominated by how teams will cope with the intense heat. This has become such an issue that FIFA have sanctioned water breaks throughout games in order to allow players some relief from the anticipated searing heat. A paper written by Maughan et al. (2010), titled “Living training and playing in the heat: challenges to the football player and strategies for coping with environmental extremes.” noted how football played in high temperatures can not only effect player performance but prior acclimatization can also lessen the impact.
However, this raises the question, what effect can temperatures have on a nation’s chances of lifting the World Cup? Do countries of warmer climates produce more winners? In a previous post on this blog, David Butler considered the relationship between geography and World Cup success. An important aspect that makes geography important is the climate.
The higher the temperature the more difficult even the simplest of tasks can become for even the most gifted players. So surely those who are used to a warmer climate should cope more favourably in these conditions than those who are not? Using average annual temperature data, I’ll attempt to address whether on average warmer countries produce more World Cup winners than colder ones.
However, this raises the question, what effect can temperatures have on a nation’s chances of lifting the World Cup? Do countries of warmer climates produce more winners? In a previous post on this blog, David Butler considered the relationship between geography and World Cup success. An important aspect that makes geography important is the climate.
The higher the temperature the more difficult even the simplest of tasks can become for even the most gifted players. So surely those who are used to a warmer climate should cope more favourably in these conditions than those who are not? Using average annual temperature data, I’ll attempt to address whether on average warmer countries produce more World Cup winners than colder ones.
As the data shows, on average nations who experience a warmer climate tend to adapt much better to playing in colder conditions than colder nations adapting to warmer ones. Of the nineteen World Cups played, only on four occasions has a country of a colder climate come to a warmer one and tasted glory (1950: Uruguay, 1982: Italy, 1990: West Germany, 2010: Spain). Even these differences, in playing in a hotter climate are minimal and for the last World Cup, the all European clash between Spain and Holland took place in South Africa’s winter period (June and July temp circa 11ºC).
Of course if only climate mattered, we could expect World Cup winners from among the Middle Eastern and African nations given their high temperatures. Obviously talent still plays a key role, given that the strongest teams still stand the best chance of making finals. However, it appears that strong nations with warm climates tend to stand a much better chance of success in Brazil e.g. Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay than their cooler counterparts, Germany, Spain, Italy etc.
Of course if only climate mattered, we could expect World Cup winners from among the Middle Eastern and African nations given their high temperatures. Obviously talent still plays a key role, given that the strongest teams still stand the best chance of making finals. However, it appears that strong nations with warm climates tend to stand a much better chance of success in Brazil e.g. Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay than their cooler counterparts, Germany, Spain, Italy etc.
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