A lesson from history: The warmer the climate, the better the World Cup

The World Cup 2026 draw is complete, the schedule has been released, and yet there remain some fundamental questions about how the tournament will function.

This is the first World Cup hosted by three nations, the first 48-team tournament, and the first where the final four will play eight games. There will be more group fixtures than there were total matches in any previous World Cup. The logistical and physical demands on players will be greater than ever.

But perhaps the biggest issue is the climate. The concern is not solely about the footballers themselves, but also for supporters and workers. Keeping them safe should be no less a priority than the players’ welfare.

Instead, the quality of play is often the main worry when discussing the potential temperatures in the United States, Mexico and Canada. At the Club World Cup last summer, Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez felt unwell and was forced to lie down on the pitch midway through Chelsea’s win over Fluminense, but he felt compelled to speak about the entertainment value as much as his health.

“The heat is incredible,” he told reporters. “I had to lie down on the ground because I was really dizzy. Playing in this temperature is very dangerous — moreover, for the spectacle, for the people who come to enjoy the stadium, for the people who watch it at home. The game, the speed of the game is not the same, everything becomes very slow. Well, let’s hope next year they change the schedule, at least so that it remains a beautiful and attractive football spectacle, right?”

Later kick-off times are surely required, particularly at Miami and Monterrey, the venues most prone to extreme heat. But the World Cup has been here before — in a very literal sense.

Mexico has already hosted two editions, in 1970 and 1986. And these are arguably the most fabled World Cups in history: the 1970 tournament is remembered for Pele and Brazil, before Diego Maradona inspired Argentina’s victory in 1986. World Cup 1994, played across the U.S., was perhaps not a true classic, but not a real stinker either (aside from the goalless final).

The 1994 World Cup had high temperatures, but the U.S. hosted a successful editionRay McManus/Sportsfile via Getty Images

Clearly, things are very different in 2025, in both the climate and the sport. Spells of extreme heat are becoming more common, and the best teams play increasingly intense, high-tempo football. But there have been concerns about heat — and altitude — before. As a general rule, the tougher the climate, the better the football has been.

The 1970 World Cup feels particularly relevant. Going into the tournament, there were serious fears that a World Cup played in such conditions could be truly disastrous, not helped by the decision to play several matches — including the final — at midday local time rather than in the evening, to attract European television viewers. Legendary football writer Brian Glanville wrote in The Story of the World Cup that “to attempt to play football (in those conditions) was both ludicrous and potentially dangerous”.

The fears about tiredness led to a major rule change: for the first time in World Cup history, teams were allowed to use substitutes.

But 1970 produced a tournament of fantastic football, with perhaps its most celebrated winners. By the end, Glanville wrote that, “Despite the abominable conditions, the 1970 World Cup had been a marvellous triumph of the positive over the negative, the creative over the destructive.”

Maybe it was, in part, because of the conditions. This was four years after England had won the World Cup with an approach that depended heavily on running power. That style wasn’t conducive to the heat, and the consensus at the time was that the more artistic sides, the ‘footballing’ sides, benefited from gifted opponents being unable to shut them down through sheer running.

Mexico last hosted World Cup stars, including Gary Lineker, in 1986Mike King/Allsport/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The World Cup returned to Mexico 16 years later. The heat — and altitude — was again an issue. Argentina manager Carlos Bilardo claimed it was so stifling that his side barely trained. They simply pretended to train, to guard against criticism. And yet Argentina produced some wonderful football — reliant on Maradona, of course — and the matches in the knockout stage were generally very good.

They are the most obvious examples. But maybe there’s a wider pattern. Formulating a definitive ranking of the ‘best’ World Cups is difficult. Perhaps the best stab was made three years ago, before the 2022 edition, by two writers at ESPN, who ranked all the World Cups from best to worst.

Gathering weather data from all 954 World Cup matches is a tough task, so here’s a very simplified method: taking the geographically ‘median’ host city from each tournament, and using the maximum temperature for the relevant month according to Google’s weather data. This, clearly, reflects modern patterns. It’s about climate rater than weather. It doesn’t tell us precisely what was happening in, say, 1938. And for some countries — Russia 2018, for example — the tournament was played over such a vast area of land that summarising things for an entire tournament is tough.

The 2010 World Cup was played in cooler winter temperaturesDoug Pensinger/Getty Images

Among all those caveats, here’s a very basic conclusion. The ‘best’ tournament, according to those ESPN rankings, was the one played in the warmest climate, World Cup 1982 in Spain. The ‘worst’ tournament was played in the coolest climate, World Cup 1930 in Uruguay.

The four tournaments played in proper winter conditions — 1930 in Uruguay, 1962 in Chile, 1978 in Argentina and 2010 in South Africa — were among the bottom eight tournaments in the ESPN rankings. Its six best tournaments — 1982 in Spain, 1970 in Mexico, 2006 in Germany, 1998 in France, 1986 in Mexico and 1994 in the U.S. — were played in warmer-than-average climates, and three of them took place in countries hosting the 2026 tournament.

How much we can read into past tournaments is debatable. There is more sprinting, more pressing, more energy in the modern game. The tempo of the footballing elements — the build-up play, the dribbling, the combination play — has necessarily become faster. Once you’re accustomed to that, it can be difficult to watch slower football. But there’s also a danger that football has become too much about tempo over technical quality. A tournament played in conditions where constant pressing is impossible might not be a bad thing — it might lead to a more enjoyable style of football.

This is not to say that World Cup 2026 will be a classic. The quality will be watered down in a 48-team tournament, the logistics of travelling such large distances will cause problems, and the sheer number of matches will result in fatigue — perhaps not just got players, but viewers too.

But, without overlooking genuine health issues, World Cup history suggests that the warmer the climate, the better the tournament.