The “Cold Weather Advisory” warns anyone in Kansas City according to which “dangerously cold wind coolants as low as 20 below zero could cause frost on the skin exposed as little as 30 minutes”. And yet, Wednesday evening, with temperatures planned below 4 degrees Fahrenheit, Sporting Kansas City and Inter Miami should play a football match.
They were originally ready to open their seasons on Tuesday during the Concacaf Champions Cup, but snow in Kansas City led to a day’s postponement. On Wednesday, however, it could be even colder. At 7 p.m., when the match should start, the planned wind cooling is -9 degrees; At 9 p.m., he could fall to -11.
It will be colder than any match of the 29 years of history of Major League Soccer, and perhaps one of the coldest football matches ever recorded, anywhere.
And that has aroused a series of questions, in particular: Lionel Messi, the starless star of Miami, will she participate?
Inter coach of Inter, Javier Mascherano, assured journalists on Monday that Messi is “100% available”, regardless of the weather. “I can assure you that Leo will play,” said Mascherano.
But, with the game reprogrammed from Tuesday to Wednesday, Inter Miami reorganized its plans and should now go to Kansas City on Wednesday morning, a source familiar with the plans told Yahoo Sports. Naturally, fans are skeptical that Messi joins his teammates. And some wonder if the game should occur at all.
Why Miami against Kansas City will continue despite the cold
The Concacaf, the Director of Northern and Central Football, which led the Champions Cup, made the initial decision to reprogram the match from Tuesday to Wednesday “due to unfavorable weather conditions which should have an impact on the metropolitan region of Kansas City in the next 24 hours, including significant accumulation of snow, “he said in a press release on Monday.
“The decision,” he added, was “made to prioritize the safety of players and fans, and in close coordination with the two participating clubs and local authorities.”
Wednesday, snow is less worrying. We expect that we expect it on Tuesday evening. And the underground heating system of Children’s Mercy Park is expected to make the Sporting KC playable field.
The concern, instead, is hypothermia, or frostbite, or other health problems – from disease to standard injuries – which could arise from extreme cold.
FifPro, an umbrella group representing players’ unions in the football globe “, recommends that training and matches be canceled and reprogrammed when air temperature is less than -15 ° C [5 degrees Fahrenheit] and when the temperature of the wind cooling is less than -27 ° C [-16.6 degrees Fahrenheit]. “”
But there are no Concacaf or FIFA rules that explain cold temperatures. In Kansas City, we expect the game to continue as planned (re) – in part because there is no room for an additional postponement on the calendar. This is the first step in a two -leg Knockout match. The second floor is scheduled for next Tuesday. And the first step in the next round is the following week. On weekends, from Saturday, there are MLS matches. (The first match of the Miami League, originally for Saturday at 2:30 p.m., was postponed at 7:30 am to host the 24 -hour postponement of the Concacaf.)
The only viable bypass solution would have been that Inter Miami agrees to welcome the first leg and go to Kansas City for the second stage next week – when KC temperatures will return to normal, until the 1950s. But Now it’s too late to turn your legs over. (When asked to confirm that the club was offered this option and explain why this change did not occur, the spokespersons of Inter Miami did not respond to messages. Concacaf did not respond to emails asking for comments.)
When is it too cold for football?
There are no rules in part because there are very little preceding for football in so cold weather. Most leagues in countries with icy winters, such as those in Scandinavia and Russia, break for January and February. The MLS seasons end in early December and start at the end of February, thus avoiding the worst winter months.
The coldest MLS match ever recorded was a match of March 3, 2019 in Colorado, which succeeded at 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest match between the MLS teams was the shock of February 20, 2018 between Colorado Rapids and Toronto FC in the Concacaf Champions League – which traditionally started a week or two before the regular MLS season.
This Colorado -Toronto match was around 5 degrees Fahrenheit at the start, and 3 degrees per conclusion, the cooling of the wind plunges well below -10 degrees.
It was then exceeded as the coldest high level game on the United States’s soil in January 2022, when the United States Male Male team played Honduras during a qualifying for the World Cup at Minnesota. The temperature of this day was 2 degrees Fahrenheit at kick -off, with wind cooling of -14. Honduras had to replace several players due to “extreme climatic conditions”.
Most of the controversies linked to weather conditions, however, focused on snow. The match on March 2 of last year between Real Salt Lake and Lafc, played on a snowy field in Utah, was described as “absolute joke” of the Lafc coach, Steve Cherundolo.
Generally, however, the clubs of cities in cold weather adopt unfavorable conditions. While Snow fell into Colorado before the Tuesday Champions Cup match between the rapids and the LAFC, the rapids seemed underlying the concern of Inter Miami concerning the conditions in Kansas City. (The nickname Inter is the herons.)
Globally, games are sometimes reported due to snow or heavy rains, but rarely because of the cold. In Siberia, a Russian Premier League match in 2018 was played in the midst of wind cooling -13 degrees Fahrenheit. The Russian football rules said that the teams could refuse to play if the temperatures fell below -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees fahrenheit), but this temperature that day at the start was -13.9 celsius (6.98 Fahrenheit). There is not such a rule in the Concacaf.
Thus, the Kansas City-Miami match will probably take place. Messi’s participation – which could compromise his health in the short and medium term, for the 2025 to come – is a decision for him and Inter Miami.
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