New York/New Jersey will host the final of the 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, and Mexico City will host the tournament's opening match.
This Sunday, FIFA revealed the complete calendar and the distribution by city of this World Cup, which will take over from Qatar 2022 and will have 48 teams instead of the usual 32, which will give rise to a record of 104 games in total.
MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, home of the New York Giants and the New York Jets of the NFL, won the fight to host the July 19 final over the other two major contenders: Dallas with the AT
For its part, the legendary Azteca Stadium, which already witnessed Pelé's third triumph in 1970 and Maradona's coronation in 1986, will uncork the tournament on June 11 with a match in which Mexico will face a rival yet to be known.
The stadium in the Mexican capital is the first venue in history to host three different World Cups after those of 1970 and 1986. It is also the third time that the Azteca Stadium will host the opening match of a World Cup.
Dallas was left without the final prize but will be the city with the most World Cup matches with a total of nine. It will also host one of the semifinals while the other will be played in Atlanta.
For its part, Miami will host the duel for third and fourth place and one of the quarterfinal matches. The other three will take place in Los Angeles, Kansas City and Boston.
With three organizing countries for the first time in the history of the World Cups, the US will take over the majority of the tournament and will have 11 of the 16 total venues: Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Dallas , Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami and New York/New Jersey.
Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey are the three Mexican representatives and Vancouver and Toronto will be the Canadian cities for this World Cup.
The United States will repeat as organizer after the 1994 edition. On that occasion, the World Cup final was held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena (Los Angeles), a stadium that is now not among those chosen for this tournament and that will now give up this honor to MetLife Stadium in New York/New Jersey.
The Mexican team will play two group stage matches in Mexico City and one in Guadalajara. In addition to the inaugural match already mentioned, El Tri will play their second match of the group stage in Guadalajara on June 18 and will return to the Azteca Stadium to face their third match on June 24.
In the group stage, Guadalajara will host four matches while Mexico City and Monterrey will each host three matches in that round.
Already in the qualifiers, Mexico City will hold a round of 32 match and another in the round of 16 while Monterrey will take care of one of the round of 32 duels.
The organizers also detailed that the US will play two group stage games in Los Angeles and one in Seattle. Likewise, Canada will play one match in Toronto and two in Vancouver in that group round.
Preparing the calendar for this World Cup entailed major challenges, taking into account the expanded number of matches and teams and that it is the first with three countries as organizers.
In this sense, the priority in preparing the calendar was the well-being and health of the players and taking care of the fans' experience, a 2026 World Cup official involved in the development of the calendar explained to EFE. Thus, all teams will have at least three days of rest (sometimes more) between games.
This minimum will be met in 103 of the 104 World Cup matches. The only one that will be left out of that rule will be the duel for third and fourth place in Miami in which one of the teams will arrive with a little less rest.
In addition to the adequate recovery of the players, those responsible for the World Cup also took into account making the most comfortable and short trips possible for both the players and the teams as well as for the fans, taking into account not only the great distances between the venues. but also the time differences that may exist as well as variations in time, humidity or altitude.
To do this, the 16 venues were divided into three zones (West, Center and East) with the intention of reducing travel and making the World Cup as sustainable as possible.
Those responsible for the calendar sought the opinions of many parties involved in such a tournament, such as medical experts or the television stations that have the broadcasting rights.
However, a novelty in the preparation was that they also spoke with coaches and technical directors of national teams to find out their concerns and ideas about the preparation of this calendar.
After the presentation of this calendar, it remains to be known the times of each match and which teams will play each match, something that will be known in the draw that is scheduled for the end of 2025.
