Russia, 2018. Diego Maradona is sitting next to Víctor Hugo Morales on the show ‘De Zurda’ and cannot believe what FIFA has just announced: the United States, Mexico and Canada will host the 2026 World Cup. There, unfiltered, he drops the line that is now making the rounds all over the Internet: “The Americans wanted to have four 25-minute quarters because of advertising”. And he adds: “They are going to play one hundred minutes”.
Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at the age of 60, without getting to see a single match of this World Cup. But FIFA, with Gianni Infantino at the helm, ended up introducing the ‘cooling break’: two hydration breaks per match, one in each half, whether or not it is 40 degrees on the pitch.
Virgil van Dijk and Marcelo Bielsa have already come out to criticize the measure. And now half the world is repeating the same thing in response to that old interview: Diego saw it coming before anyone else.
Holy shit.
— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri) June 29, 2026
Maradona in 2018 on the day the World Cup 2026 was awarded to USA, Mexico and Canada, goes on saying:
“They will do 4 quarters of the game instead of two halves so to put commercials, you’ll see” pic.twitter.com/cLkhZrddPJ