2026 World Cup Final Will Be Played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey

The 2026 World Cup final will be played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on July 19.

FIFA made the announcement Sunday at a Miami television studio, allocating the opener of the 39-day tournament to Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca on June 11.

Semifinals will be played on July 14 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and the following day at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Quarterfinals will be at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on July 9, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the following day and at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, and Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, on July 11. The third-place game will be at Hard Rock on July 18.

The U.S. team will open at SoFi on June 12, then play seven days later at Seattle’s Lumen Field and finish the group stage at SoFi on June 25.

AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys that had hoped to host the final, has the most matches of any venue with nine.

FIFA officials did not publicly explain their site-decision process.

Canada will play its opening first-round match in Toronto on June 12, then its following two games in Vancouver, British Columbia, on June 18 and 24.

A nation will need to play eight matches to win the title, up from seven since 1982.

Other U.S. sites are Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, 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 also will be played at Estadio BBVA in Monterrey and Estadio Akron in Guadalajara.

Both the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals were at Azteca.

When the U.S. hosted the 24-nation, 52-game tournament in 1994, the final was at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and the opener at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

With the additional teams, the length of the tournament will grow from 29 days in the shortened 2022 schedule in Qatar and 32 days for the 2018 tournament in Russia.

Only one match will involve a team that has not had at least three off days. FIFA divided the group stage into East, Central and West regions and intended to make travel shorter for group winners.

The stadiums in Arlington, Atlanta and Houston have retractable roofs that are expected to be closed because of summer heat, and Inglewood and Vancouver have fixed roofs.

Artificial turf will be replaced by grass in Arlington, Atlanta, East Rutherford, Foxborough, Houston, Inglewood and Vancouver.

Several of the venues are expected to widen their surfaces to accommodate a 75-by-115 yard (68-by-105 meter) playing field, including AT&T and MetLife.

FIFA did not announce kickoff times. The 1994 championship started at 12:30 p.m. PDT (3:30 p.m. EDT and 9:30 p.m. in Central Europe) but the start has been moved up in recent years as Asia’s television market become more significant to FIFA. The 2022 final in Qatar started at 5 p.m. local time (10 a.m. EDT, 4 p.m. in Central Europe and 10 p.m. in Beijing).

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.