What Should Soccer Players Do at Halftime? New Research Suggests Sitting Still May Be the Wrong Answer

Halftime feels like a break.

After 45 minutes of sprinting, defending, pressing, passing, and chasing the game, players finally get 15 minutes to sit down, drink something, listen to their coach, and recover.

There is only one problem.

Sitting still may be exactly what players should not be doing.

A 2026 study published in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine examined what happened when elite academy soccer players spent halftime simply resting compared with using several passive recovery technologies. The results suggest that halftime isn’t merely a chance to recover from the first half. It may be a critical window for protecting performance at the beginning of the second.

And for coaches, the implications go beyond buying recovery gadgets.

The bigger lesson is that halftime should be treated as part of performance preparation—not simply as a break from the game.

The Soccer Halftime Problem

Soccer players don’t enter the second half in exactly the same physical state in which they finished the first.

Researchers have identified two different declines in performance during matches. One is the gradual fatigue that accumulates as the game progresses. The other is a more immediate post-halftime dip, particularly during the first 5–15 minutes after players return to the field.

One explanation is surprisingly simple: players cool down.

During halftime, muscle and core temperature can decline while players sit in the locker room. Previous research has connected this decline with reductions in sprinting and other high-intensity actions once play resumes.

That creates an interesting contradiction.

Players need halftime to recover. Coaches need halftime to make tactical adjustments. But 15 minutes of sitting around can leave players less prepared for the explosive demands awaiting them when the whistle blows again.

Previous research has therefore explored short re-warm-ups, heat maintenance, hydration, carbohydrates, and caffeine as ways to maintain second-half performance. Dynamic re-warm-ups lasting roughly three to seven minutes appear particularly promising.

But there is an obvious practical problem.

Anyone who has coached soccer knows how quickly halftime disappears.

Players need water. Someone needs treatment. Substitutions need to be discussed. Tactical adjustments need to be explained. Players have questions. The goalkeeper wandered off somewhere.

Finding another five or seven minutes—and enough space—for a structured warm-up isn’t always easy.

So researchers asked a different question:

Could players preserve performance while essentially remaining at rest?

Researchers Tested 43 Elite Youth Soccer Players

The study included 43 male academy players with an average age of about 17.5 years from Northampton Town Football Club Academy.

Players were randomly assigned to one of four halftime conditions:

• Passive rest: Sitting for 15 minutes without stretching or reactivation.
• Percussive therapy: Eight minutes using a Theragun on the calves, quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes, followed by seven minutes of seated rest.
• Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS): Ten minutes of low-frequency stimulation to the quadriceps and hamstrings followed by five minutes of rest.
• Pneumatic compression: Ten minutes wearing compression boots followed by five minutes of seated rest.

Rather than simply asking players how they felt, researchers tested several dimensions of soccer performance.

Players completed repeated 20-meter sprints and the Loughborough Soccer Pass Test, which incorporates passing, dribbling, ball control, speed, accuracy, and decision-making. They also rated their perceived recovery.

That technical test is especially important.

Soccer performance isn’t just about whether a player can run fast after halftime.

A midfielder who is physically capable of making a run but starts misplacing passes isn’t performing at the same level. Neither is a defender who reacts half a second too slowly or a winger whose first touch deteriorates.

The researchers wanted to know whether halftime interventions could protect both the physical and technical sides of the game.

Sitting Still Produced the Biggest Second-Half Decline

The passive-rest group provides the most interesting finding for everyday coaches.

Their technical performance got worse.

Their sprint performance got worse.

And they felt considerably less recovered.

On the Loughborough Soccer Pass Test, the passive-rest group’s overall score deteriorated by 7.47% between halves.

Players using percussive therapy, by comparison, improved by 2.43%, while those receiving electrical muscle stimulation improved by 2.55%.

The pattern also appeared in sprinting.

Average 20-meter sprint time worsened by 2.34% in the passive-rest group. Players using pneumatic compression were nearly unchanged, while the percussive-therapy group actually recorded slightly faster average times.

The researchers emphasize that these findings should primarily be understood as performance preservation, rather than evidence that the interventions magically made players better during halftime.

That distinction matters.

The goal may not be to turn a player into a faster or more technically skilled athlete during a 15-minute break.

It is to send them back onto the field closer to the player who walked off it 15 minutes earlier.

The Effect Wasn’t the Same for Every Recovery Strategy

One of the most useful aspects of the study is that the interventions didn’t produce identical results.

Percussive therapy produced perhaps the broadest effects. Players experienced less deterioration in overall technical performance, better preservation of 20-meter sprint performance, a smaller increase in heart rate, and less deterioration in perceived recovery than players who simply rested.

Electrical muscle stimulation showed a somewhat different pattern.

Those players maintained technical performance particularly well, including fewer declines related to passing errors, but EMS did not produce a clear sprinting advantage over passive rest.

Pneumatic compression produced yet another profile. It didn’t substantially improve the passing-test results, but it helped preserve 20-meter sprint performance and produced the smallest decline in perceived recovery.

In other words, there wasn’t one universally superior “recovery” intervention.

That leads to a much more interesting question for coaches:

What exactly are you trying to preserve?

What This Means for Soccer Coaches

Imagine you’re coaching a team that wants to come out aggressively after halftime.

You’re going to press high for the first ten minutes. Your outside backs will push forward. Your forwards need to attack space behind the defense.

Explosive acceleration matters enormously.

In that situation, maintaining sprint capacity might be the priority.

Now imagine something different.

You’re protecting a 1–0 lead against a high-pressing opponent. Your players need to remain composed in possession, play through pressure, and avoid cheap turnovers around their own penalty area.

Technical execution may matter more.

The study’s authors therefore suggest an outcome-driven approach: percussive therapy or EMS may make sense when preserving passing precision and technical performance is the priority, while percussive therapy or pneumatic compression could be considered when sprint capacity or perceived recovery is more important.

But there is an even bigger coaching implication.

Stop treating halftime as dead time.

Halftime is part of the match.

Coaches routinely plan substitutions, set pieces, pressing triggers, formations, and pregame warm-ups down to the minute. Yet the physical component of halftime can amount to:

Sit down. Drink water. Listen to me talk. Go play.

The emerging evidence suggests that this may be leaving performance on the table.

A better halftime protocol deliberately manages the transition between halves.

You Probably Don’t Need a Locker Room Full of Technology

There is an important danger in interpreting this study.

The takeaway should not be that every youth soccer team needs massage guns, electrical stimulation devices, and pneumatic compression boots.

In fact, the broader research cited by the authors already suggests that a short active re-warm-up can help protect performance. One previous study found that a seven-minute halftime shuttle jog reduced the typical decline in 20-meter sprint performance during the opening 15 minutes of the second half.

The technologies tested here are interesting partly because they solve a logistical problem.

Players can use them while listening to tactical instructions.

The interventions require little space and relatively little effort, meaning the coach doesn’t necessarily have to choose between talking to the team and preparing the team physically. The researchers specifically argue that these strategies could function alongside tactical communication, hydration, nutrition, and established re-warm-up strategies rather than replacing them.

For professional academies, that could make recovery technology attractive.

For the average youth team, however, the simpler principle may be much more valuable:

Don’t allow players to spend the entire halftime completely inactive.

A Better Soccer Halftime Routine

For coaches, this research points toward a halftime structure rather than a particular product.

The first few minutes can still be used for recovery, hydration, treatment, and player feedback. Tactical instruction can follow while players remain seated or use whatever recovery resources are appropriate and available.

But before returning to play, players should transition toward physical readiness.

That could mean a short dynamic re-warm-up involving movements relevant to the upcoming demands of the match: progressive running, accelerations, changes of direction, dynamic movements, and touches on the ball where circumstances allow.

The key is avoiding the extreme of spending nearly 15 minutes sedentary and then immediately asking players to sprint, press, tackle, and execute technically demanding actions at match speed.

For players, the message is similarly straightforward.

Feeling rested isn’t necessarily the same as being ready to play.

The goal at halftime isn’t simply to become as comfortable as possible. It is to recover enough from the first half while remaining prepared for the second.

Why the First 15 Minutes After Halftime Matter

This research also gives coaches another reason to pay close attention to the opening phase of the second half.

If players experience an immediate post-halftime performance dip, then tactical expectations should reflect that possibility.

Think about the actions occurring immediately after the restart.

A center back may suddenly have to chase a ball over the top.

A winger may have to make a 20-meter recovery sprint.

A midfielder may receive the ball under pressure and have less than a second to find the next pass.

These aren’t situations in which a small deterioration in speed or technical precision is meaningless.

The researchers specifically defined practically meaningful performance preservation partly in terms of maintaining passing accuracy and sprint ability close to first-half levels because those capabilities could influence important transitional moments early in the second half.

A team’s halftime strategy, therefore, shouldn’t end when the coach finishes talking.

It should end when the players are ready for the first sprint, first duel, and first difficult touch of the second half.

There Are Reasons to Be Cautious

This is an intriguing study, but it isn’t the final word on soccer halftime recovery.

Only 43 players participated, and each individual intervention group was relatively small. All were male academy-level players, so the results shouldn’t automatically be assumed to apply equally to younger players, female players, adult recreational players, or professionals.

More importantly, this was a simulated soccer protocol rather than an actual competitive match.

Real games introduce tactical demands, opponents, psychological pressure, substitutions, weather, injuries, and countless other variables that a controlled simulation cannot completely reproduce.

There was also no sham treatment, meaning players knew whether they were receiving an intervention. Some of the perceived—and potentially performance—effects could therefore involve expectations.

And there is another disclosure worth knowing: several authors were employees or contractors of Therabody, which supplied the recovery devices used in the study. The paper states that Therabody did not participate in study design or data collection, but the authors appropriately identify the relationship as a potential conflict of interest.

Those limitations make replication in actual competitive matches particularly important.

The Bigger Lesson: Coaches Should Design Halftime

The most interesting finding from this research isn’t really about massage guns.

It’s about those 15 minutes between halves.

For decades, soccer teams have devoted enormous attention to preparing players before matches while treating halftime primarily as an opportunity for rest and tactical instruction.

But halftime presents its own physiological challenge.

Players need to recover without becoming inactive.

They need tactical information without spending so long sitting that their bodies cool down.

They need hydration and nutrition without forgetting that another 45 minutes of high-intensity soccer begins almost immediately.

This study suggests that passive recovery technologies could become another tool for managing that balancing act. Percussive therapy showed particularly promising results across technical and physical outcomes, while EMS and pneumatic compression may have benefits for particular aspects of performance.

But coaches don’t need expensive equipment to apply the most important lesson.

Halftime shouldn’t be 15 minutes of sitting followed by a whistle.

It should be a carefully managed transition from recovery → instruction → reactivation → competition.

Because the first few minutes of the second half aren’t the end of halftime recovery.

They’re the test of whether your halftime routine actually worked.