The final of the 2026 Men’s Football World Cup, which will bring together 48 teams for the first time and will be co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, will take place in New York on July 19, FIFA announced on Sunday. The opening ceremony and match will take place at Mexico City’s historic Azteca Stadium on June 11, and will honor the national team.
“The fan experience is going to be incredible,” promised FIFA boss Gianni Infantino, author, in a beige hooded jacket and white sneakers, of the announcement during a televised ceremony from Miami. Italo-Switzerland is hoping for “6 million supporters” and “6 billion viewers” for a tournament more impressive than ever.
The format of the competition has been expanded to 48 teams, compared to 32 since 1998, for a total of 104 matches distributed between 16 stadiums already revealed in 2022: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Boston , Philadelphia, Miami and New York in the United States, Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey in Mexico, Toronto and Vancouver in Canada.
Final in front of 82,500 spectators
MetLife Stadium and its 82,500 seats, host to the New York Jets and Giants American football teams, located precisely in East Rutherford in New Jersey (west of Manhattan), was therefore preferred to Dallas and Los Angeles, others cities considered to host the final. That of 1994 took place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in the suburbs of LA where Brazil won its 4th star at the expense of Italy, on penalties.
The Azteca, the beating heart of Mexican football enthusiasts, will be the first stadium in history to have the honors of opening the competition for the third time, after 1970 and 1986, editions which ended respectively in the same venue. , to the coronations of Pelé’s Brazil and Maradona’s Argentina.
The semi-finals of the next World Cup will take place in Dallas and Atlanta, FIFA revealed during its ceremony in the presence of guests from all walks of life: comedian and actor Kevin Hart, Canadian rapper Drake, the star Kim Kardashian, or the former Brazilian world champion Cafu.
The Copa America warming up
In the meantime, Messi is already expected at the Copa America, played this year in the United States from June 20 to July 16, a sort of “pre-World Cup” for the host country two years before the big event.
The 48 teams competing in 2026 will be divided into twelve groups of four. The first two in each group as well as the eight best third-placed teams will advance to the round of 16, extending the knockout phase by one step, which until now started at the round of 16.
This next World Cup must be one of all commercial records for FIFA, while the windfall from the men’s tournament represents the bulk of the income which it then redistributes to its 211 member federations.
2024-02-05 07:45:00
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