In short: Elite footballers don't drink water when they're thirsty. They follow a protocol that starts the day before the match and ends hours after the final whistle. We explain how it works, with real sweat data from professional football.
How Professional Footballers Hydrate During a World Cup Match
You see a player drinking water on the sidelines during the thirty seconds of a corner kick and you think that's the end of the story. It's not. By the time that player raises the bottle to their mouth in the 63rd minute, they've already been following a hydration plan specifically designed for them, using data from their own body, for weeks. Thirst, in fact, is the signal that this plan aims to prevent from appearing.
It all starts before warming up: measuring how much is lost
Elite teams' medical staff know, player by player, how much each sweats under different conditions. The most common way to measure this is to weigh the footballer before and after a training session under conditions similar to the match: the difference in weight, subtracting what they drank during the session, is practically water lost through sweat. With this personal data, the coaching staff calculates how much that specific player needs to replenish, because sweating rates vary greatly from person to person even with the same effort.
Reference studies in professional football give an idea of the magnitude. Maughan (2004) measured an average sweat loss of approximately 2 liters in 90 minutes of intense training at 24°C with English Premier League players. Shirreffs (2005) found similar figures, around 2.2 liters, in elite players training at 32°C. The temperature difference between both studies explains a good part of the difference in sweating: more heat, more loss, even with the same type of effort.
The night and morning before the match also count
Pre-hydration, which occurs in the 24 hours leading up to the match, is the least visible part of the protocol and probably the most decisive. A player who arrives at warm-up already with a fluid deficit cannot fully compensate for it in the minutes before kick-off. That's why sports hydration protocols, such as those summarized in the official position statement of the American College of Sports Medicine (Sawka MN et al., ACSM Position Stand, 2007), insist that fluid intake be planned hours in advance, not in the locker room ten minutes before going out.
A common practice is to monitor urine color as a quick indicator of hydration: the clearer it is, the better hydrated the player. It's not an exact science and doesn't replace actual measurement, but it's a simple check that anyone, not just a professional footballer, can apply before a demanding activity. Other signs that the body is not getting enough water are explained in signs you're not drinking enough water.
During the match: why waiting for the water break isn't enough
FIFA implements cooling breaks when heat conditions warrant it, with protocols we explain in detail in why FIFA stops matches to hydrate players. But these breaks are not the only time an elite player drinks. The 15-minute halftime is the largest window, and many teams also take advantage of stoppages, fouls near the sideline, or player substitutions to replenish fluids in small, constant amounts, rather than trying to recover all lost fluid at once.
When sweating is abundant and prolonged, as can happen in a match that goes into extra time, water alone begins to be insufficient. The sodium lost through sweat must also be replenished, because drinking large amounts of water alone without replacing electrolytes can dilute blood sodium. That's why many teams use electrolyte drinks during long matches or in very hot climates, not as a whim, but as part of the same replenishment calculation that started the day before.
After the final whistle: the part nobody sees on TV
Post-match recovery has its own logic, different from "drinking until thirst is quenched." The ACSM position recommends replenishing about 150% of the fluid lost during exertion, precisely because the body continues to produce urine in the following hours and an exact one-to-one replacement leaves the player in deficit. This is one of the reasons you see footballers continue to drink in the locker room, on the bus, and at the hotel, long after the match has ended.
A recent example of why this entire protocol matters: the Argentina-Cape Verde match at the 2026 World Cup, which went to 120 minutes in the Miami heat, showed in real time what happens when two teams deplete their fluid reserves beyond what was expected. We explain it in more detail in what 120 minutes in the heat does to the body.
What you can apply without being a professional footballer
You don't need a medical team or a precision scale to apply the central idea of this protocol: hydrate before exertion, not just during, and continue replenishing afterward even if thirst has already disappeared. If you exercise regularly, train at the gym, or simply go for a run in the summer, the logic is the same as that of any World Cup squad, just on a smaller scale. To understand how much water your body needs on a normal day, without a match in the background, the complete guide is in how much water you should drink per day.
Carrying cold water with you, in a bottle you actually use, is the simplest part of the protocol, and also the easiest to forget. Here's the Fluye collection, for your next training session or the next match you watch under the sun.
Written by the Fluye Bottle team