Philly Kind of Got Boned with the World Cup Schedule

FIFA revealed the 2026 World Cup schedule on Sunday and MetLife is hosting the final:

FIFA has announced that the 2026 World Cup Final will be held at Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey

CAN’T WAIT! pic.twitter.com/PjHkKEc6Y6

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) February 4, 2024

MetLife stinks. A soulless husk of a stadium with no personality and no character. We’ve had World Cup finals in beautiful cities like Rio, Rome, and Paris, now we’re asking international travelers to come to North Jersey.

Jerry World in Dallas was the rumored frontrunner, but in the end FIFA went with the New York market after Pasadena hosted the 1994 final. It makes sense from that perspective, since LA got the nod 30 years ago, but yeah, this decision just feels kind of “meh.” New York isn’t the only big city in the United States.

Quick aside –

Don’t worry about torn ACLs, because they’re gonna replace the turf with grass for the tournament. That’s non-negotiable and would have been the case no matter what venue was chosen to host the final. No death turf in 2026. It’ll be fresh grass, hopefully not installed by the NFL or the Sodfather.

As for us, we kind of got boned. Philadelphia will host six games, which is on the lower side, and we didn’t get a semifinal or a quarterfinal. It’ll be a round of 16 game on the Fourth of July, which is symbolic since it’s America’s 250th birthday, but Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, and KC are getting bigger games and other cities are getting more games:

2026 World Cup fixtures by city…
Dallas 9
Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York 8
Vancouver, Houston, Miami, Foxborough 7
Seattle, San Jose, Kansas City, Toronto, Philadelphia 6
Mexico City 5
Guadalajara, Monterrey 4

— Mike Conti (@MikeConti929) February 4, 2024

Whatever. This slight can be redeemed if the USA draws England for the Philly game and Weston McKennie goes studs up on Jack Grealish to set the tone early. United States 4, Wankers nil. We go on to win it all, then the MLB All Star game precedes a World Series win for the Fightin’ Phils. 2026 is our year.

EDIT – I’ve heard people say that FIFA didn’t give Philly a QF or SF because they didn’t want their games running into the MLB All Star festivities. I haven’t heard that or even seen it reported anywhere. 

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