NEW YORK, NY–After weeks of expectation that AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas would host the Men’s World Cup Final in 2026, it was made official on Sunday with the release of the match schedule that Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ would host the Final. Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca will host the opening match.
The USA, co-hosting the tournament with Canada and Mexico, will begin play on June 12th, 2026 at Los Angeles’s So-Fi Stadium. Their other group matches will be at Seattle’s Lumen Field and back to So-Fi for their third match. Mexico will be hosting its third World Cup (1970, 1986) and will have all three of their group matches on home soil. Canada will also begin play on June 12th at BMO Field in Toronto, followed by two matches at Vancouver’s BC Place.
FIFA did not announce kickoff times. The 1994 World Cup Final had a kickoff time at 12:30pm PDT (3:30pm EDT and 9:30 pm 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 5pm local time (10am EDT, 4pm in Central Europe and 10pm. in Beijing).
In addition, FIFA has ensured that teams will have three full days of rest between matches. Out of 104 total matches, the only exception to this guideline will be the third-place game at the end of the tournament.
This will be the first World Cup with 48 teams divided into 12 groups of four. The top two in each group, plus the eight best third-place team will advance to the knockout stages.
Stadiums will be assigned to groups rather than individual fixtures in a bid to reduce travel requirements for competing teams.
The travel demands won’t be equal across the 48 teams, however. They will be weighted in favor of teams that finish top of their group, with second-place finishers having less-forgiving travel requirements and third-place teams having the greatest travel demands.
FIFA will also be paying attention to weather conditions. It has looked at heat and humidity readings in each of the 16 venue cities, which will influence what time of day games will be held. Following the group stage draw in December 2025, the final kickoff times will be announced.
The breakdown of matches by city will be as follows:
- Dallas: 9, including a semifinal
- New York/New Jersey: 8, including the final
- Atlanta: 8, including a semifinal
- Los Angeles: 8, including a quarterfinal
- Miami: 7, including the third-place playoff and a quarterfinal
- Boston: 7, including a quarterfinal
- Vancouver: 7
- Houston: 7
- Kansas City: 6, including a quarterfinal
- Toronto: 6
- Philadelphia: 6
- San Francisco: 6
- Seattle: 6
- Mexico City: 5
- Guadalajara: 4
- Monterrey: 4
