For the first time in 27 days, there are no men’s World Cup matches to watch on Wednesday.There are five rest days in this final stretch before the tournament’s winner is crowned at the MetLife Stadium on July 19, with the first on Wednesday marking a quick breather before the quarter-final stage gets under way on Thursday, when France play Morocco.There are now only two knockout rounds before the final — and the jeopardy, excitement and anticipation are ramping up.The most recent matches at the last-16 stage had no shortage of drama, with Golden Boot-leader Lionel Messi scoring his eighth goal of the tournament to complete Argentina’s 3-2 comeback victory over Egypt after going 2-0 down. Later on Tuesday, Colombia were eliminated on penalties by Switzerland.So with an evening suddenly missing the joy and pain of World Cup soccer — what do we do now?Why has the World Cup paused?Players to rest.Of the 104 scheduled matches of the tournament, 96 have been played — 92 per cent of the tournament.France and Morocco — who face each other in the first quarter-final on Thursday — most recently competed on Saturday, in their wins over Canada and Paraguay respectively, leaving just four days to recover.With the tournament being expanded to 48 teams this year, rest is more important than ever as an extra round was inserted into the schedule and teams that have made it to these latter stages have played five games already.Mental fatigue, physical strain, miles of travel and heat issues will all start to take their toll.“You get really tired, but not about the seven or eight games,” Ivan Rakitić told The Athletic. “You get tired because of thinking, preparation, analysis, taking care about yourself, your team-mates, and taking care about other things.”Luckily for eager fans, most markers for freshness return to baseline within around five days.Germany’s head of performance Nicklas Dietrich identified “a lot of travel, there are time shifts, there are different climates at different stadiums” as challenges they will have to overcome.