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The 2026 World Cup Final will be held on July 19th at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The 2026 World Cup Final will be held on July 19th at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
FIFA made the announcement at a television studio in Miami on Sunday, announcing that the opening match of the 39-day competition will be played at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca on June 11.
The U.S. team will play its opening game on June 12 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., before moving to Seattle’s Lumen Field to finish the group stage at SoFi.
The third place match will be held at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.
FIFA officials have not publicly explained the process used to decide on the venue.
FIFA has expanded the number of countries participating in the World Cup from 32 to 48 countries, and increased the number of matches from 64 countries to 104 countries. The 2026 tournament will be co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, with all matches from the quarterfinals onwards to be played in the United States, FIFA announced. Site in 2022.
Canada will play its first round opener in Toronto on June 12, followed by the next two games in Vancouver, British Columbia.
A country needs to play eight games to win the title, up from seven since 1982.
AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, which had hoped to host the finals, hosted the most games at nine.
Other U.S. venues include Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts; NRG Stadium in Houston. Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Matches in Mexico will also be played at Estadio BBVA in Monterrey and Estadio Akron in Guadalajara.
All 11 stadiums in the United States are home to NFL teams. Hard Rock Stadium hosted this year’s Copa America final on July 14, and MetLife was the venue for the 2016 Copa America final.
The 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals were both played at the Aztecs.
In 1994, when the United States hosted a 52-game tournament with 24 countries participating, the final game was played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and the opening game was played at Soldier Field in Chicago.
With the addition of teams, the duration of the competition will be lengthened from the shortened 29 days of the 2022 Qatar Games and 32 days of the 2018 Russia Games.
Teams that have not had at least three days off will only participate in one game. FIFA divided the group stage into East, Central and Western regions, with the intention of shortening the travel for group winners.
Stadiums in Arlington, Atlanta and Houston have retractable roofs but are expected to be closed due to the summer heat, while stadiums in Inglewood and Vancouver have fixed roofs.
Artificial turf will be replaced with grass in Arlington, Atlanta, East Rutherford, Foxboro, Houston, Inglewood and Vancouver.
Some venues, including AT&T and MetLife, plan to expand their footprint to accommodate a 75-by-115-yard (68-by-105-meter) playing field.
FIFA has not announced a kickoff time. The 1994 championship started at 12:30 PM PDT (3:30 PM EDT, 9:30 PM in Central Europe), but as the Asian television market became more important to FIFA, In recent years, the start time has been moved up. The 2022 final in Qatar started at 5pm local time (10am EDT, 4pm Central Europe, 10pm Beijing).
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AP Soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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AP Soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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