2026 FIFA World Cup Discussion

Now at center back for North Korea, #10… Kim Jong-un!

I already thought ATL was a lock as a host, but scheduling a press conference at the stadium for the FIFA broadcast makes it seem even more so.

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Reminder: WC26 host city announcement is late this afternoon EDT.

After years of watching the race, here are this writer’s picks for which cities will host games.

In: Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Santa Clara, Seattle, and Washington/Baltimore in the U.S.; Toronto and Vancouver in Canada; Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey in Mexico.

Out: Boston, Cincinnati, Denver, Edmonton, Nashville, and Orlando.

A slight surprise to me to see Denver automatically ruled out due to altitude by this writer. It’s a nice stadium, right downtown, accessible to public transit, with lots of good infrastructure. Mexico City is much higher altitude than DEN.

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As you’d expect they are dragging this announcement out. So far they’ve done the west:
Vancouver, Seattle, San Fran, LA, and Guadalajara are in

Atlanta is in!

He missed one: Boston is in, DC/Baltimore is out.

Pretty Epic road trip IMO

The ESPN story gives the facts about each stadium, except what kind of turf.
So, SEA, VAN, LA, HOU, DAL, ATL, NJ, BOS all have artificial turf fields. Eight of the 16 venues. The Three Mex and TOR are grass. PHI, SF, MIA, KC are grass.
Compare that to 1994, when only two of nine fields were artificial turf.

Still to be determined: whether the Arsenal Football owner will tear out some seats of his Ram Football stadium for a few matches.

One little blurb from the Dallas section:

There have been reports that the field will have to be somehow widened for World Cup matches, and like many of the U.S.-based stadiums, it will need grass installed over the turf to satisfy FIFA requirements.

Also, Q: will the host countries play in their own country during Group? Probably, I mean, every other host played in their own country.

Also, looks like they took my advice with sets of cities near each other, instead of Brazil’s (and 1994’s) stupid idea.
SEA/VAN
LA/SF
NJ/BOS
PHI/TOR (some mix of these four)
KC/DAL
HOU/Monterrey
ATL/MIA
GUA/MEXCity

Doesn’t mean they’ll actually use my idea of putting two of the 16 groups of three teams in each pair of stadiums. Each city gets three matches in the Group stage: two of one group, and one of the other.
Then, a Round of 32’s match is played in each stadium by those two Groups: 1st place plays the other’s 2nd place, and vice versa. Then, teams, and fans, have to start traveling.

All ends in Dallas.

Vancouver gets 6 games versus Toronto’s 4 since our stadium has more seating capacity. That may mean the Canadian team plays its matches in Vancouver.

There are huge numbers of Italian, English, Brazilian and Portuguese fans in Toronto so any one of those teams would be especially welcomed if they played there.

Vancouver also expected to host the draw in 2026.

Really like that our neighbour Seattle gets games. Great that Atlanta was chosen as their fans deserve it.

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Rather than tear seats out, apparently DAL has plans to raise the level of the field high enough to fit the pitch dimensions in. No idea if this is doable at SoFi.

I think there are some high spots in the way.

Atlanta will install grass in February 2026 for the world cup. No idea how they will keep it healthy that long, as prior reports said the roof opening was not big enough to have enough sun for a permanent grass field.

Sounds good to me as it should be well established grass for WC. Sometimes when a field gets put in soon before a match it’s not in great condition. Atlanta United will get to play on grass for at least the first half of that season. They’ll rip it out and go back to turf later

There will be only 2 groups stage games/team in 2026. So I assume Canada will play one game each in Vancouver and Toronto. Mexico will play in Mexico City and either Monterrey/Guadalajara. Who knows where the US will play since no cities in Ohio were chosen.

Canadians are used to their team not being in the WC so everyone has favourite teams other than Canada that they follow closely. I expect though there will be fierce competition among the US cities to get the games involving the US team. Those games may be allocated to the largest US stadiums?

That would be NY and Dallas.

Personally I would want to minimize travel, so 2 group stage games in NYC/Boston/Philly makes sense. And then make the other group stage game be in LA/SF/Seattle.

I am hoping for some good games in KC since that is the closest drive for me.

But damn it could be hot and humid there for a mid-afternoon game.

What is the expectation around automatic qualification for US/Mexico/Canada as hosts? Although they should not need help making the 48 qualifying teams.