The U.S. men’s national team, Canada, and Mexico have all learned where and when they will be playing their 2026 FIFA World Cup group stage matches.
Gregg Berhalter’s squad will begin their journey through the tournament’s group stage at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium on June 12, before later group stage matches at Lumen Field in Seattle on June 25, and SoFi Stadium on June 26.
East Rutherford, New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium has been awarded the World Cup Final on July 19. The semifinals will be played on July 14 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and July 15 at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.
“It’s great to finally learn where we will be for the group stage. It really starts to bring things to life,” Berhalter said. “We would have been happy with any of the venues because we know the home support is going to be incredible. When you think about Los Angeles, it’s an iconic soccer city which has already hosted three World Cup Finals. It’s going to be an amazing venue for us.
“With Seattle you have a rich fan culture and an incredible atmosphere in the stadium,” he added. “I get goosebumps thinking about it already. It’s not only about the cities hosting the World Cup, it’s about all the communities across America really getting behind us and creating this wave of support that really pushes the team to try to go and reach new heights.”
Mexico will open the 2026 tournament at Estadio Azteca on June 11 before also traveling to Guadalajara’s Estadio Akron on June 18, and on a return trip to Estadio Azteca on June 24.
Canada will open its group stage schedule at Toronto’s BMO Field on June 12 before playing their final two matches at Vancouver’s BC Place on June 18 and June 24 respectively.
Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, and Monterrey are also hosting sites for the competition. 2026 will mark the first World Cup with 48 teams involved.
Ives,
Can we get a piece that explains the Hexagonal etc since three teams have already qualified in a sense? Is there a chance that another concacaf team can qualify at all since there is usually a playoff for the fourth team? Since this is a 48 team event how many concacaf teams can participate?
What will these three teams do besides Gold Cup and Copa American competitions until 2026 for competitive matches?
remember they expanded the tournament to 48 teams this time. concacaf got 3 host slots (US, Can, Mex), 3 qualifying spots, and then 2 playoff spots. hosts are automatically in. qualifying is (a) round 1 worst 4 teams playoff for last two round 2 slots; (b) round 2 group play, best 2 advance from 6 groups; (c) round 3 group play, three 4 team groups, group winners qualify, (d) two best runners-up to inter-continental playoff.
so concacaf has 6-8 slots now. i expect we will still have 5-6 next time and that qualifying has basically permanently changed as long as it’s 48 teams.
i expect in the future concacaf qualifying will be something like this cycle but instead 2 teams will emerge from the 3 groups. the problem with imitating UEFA would be we have too few slots to divide potentially 50-odd teams into manageable groups and reward each of the winners. my math we’re talking 8-9 team groups which becomes a lengthy round robin like 2022 was.
i could see them going this 2026 direction in the future as it allows some tiering of the qualifying and when teams enter — we tend to resist giving everyone equal chance — and the numbers work out right. it ends up like the old semi round was. 12 teams, 6 advance. hex. you just don’t hold the last round.
and if they want 2 playoff teams on top of that, it becomes 3rd place teams who go.
Hello!
Does this help w/ your question?
https://sbisoccer.com/2024/01/concacaf-reveals-groups-for-2026-world-cup-qualifying
ah, a world cup final in new jersey. yeah, that’s a thing.
US training facilities isn’t in Atl (city limits). Larry has it in the 6th paragraph “suburban”. Katy Tx isn’t Houston. Rutherford, NJ isn’t NYC. Stockton, Ca isn’t San Francisco. Peoria Illinois isn’t Chicago. Colorado Springs isn’t Denver. Fayetteville, GA isn’t Atlanta. at all. 45 minutes outside of if traffic is good. Luv a good rant IV (1rst thread/ bottom comments); you’re so far off about the southeast and its athletes and the training that goes on. Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Charlie Ward aren’t from Cali. Alabama, FLA, GA respectfully. Dual sport athletes. Jerry Rice is from Mississippi. How many soccer players come from Mississippi? GA? Alabama? USSF is 40 years late. When Bradenton Academy started turning out soccer talent, that was too late. At least, it was in the state of Florida. These types of athletes are what’s needed in the dna of the player pool. These athletes and millions of others train & play in the humidity of the south east. Don’t let me get into the US track stars, MLB, or combat athletes that come from this region. Or even add in South Carolina & Louisiana list of athletes, which goes on forever. These states produce hall of fame talent in the all the major sports but not good enough to produce talented soccer players in this country?! Even better question is whether or not Mercedes Benz is going to have a hybrid grass, or real grass? Bcuz turf ain’t happ’n
i grew up in the south. dude, have you ever played summer soccer in california or up north? for someone from the south, who might play summer games in 100F or heat and humidity, it was glorious. you can run all day. if i have a choice, and the tournament is not in tropical brazil, do i train in pleasant temps or even at altitude, or do i sweat the team in a sauna, with no added benefit and lower quality practices? particularly when the schedule says we will play in california and washington. i am not saying the south doesn’t produce athletes. i am talking about where a team would choose to locate its training HQ in the summer, if they wanted good, effective workouts and to be ready to play hard. you want moderate temps and nice weather. it’s only common sense if the games are west coast to train west coast.
they have an existing training setup west coast. there are several pro fields west coast. there are all manner of college soccer grass and turf setups west coast. i am simply pointing out that the training base wouldn’t make sense for this schedule, and is poorly chosen for most other summers. hot-lanta simply is what it is.
i mean, if vegas offered beaucoup bucks, would it justify an outdoor center in 110F heat? no. positively, we should be seeking out a nice weather site for good training, and conversely, negatively, declining ones in dumb summer weather locations. this is common sense. there is a reason MLB spring trains in AZ but come the actual season diamondbacks play indoors. i think people have lost sight of fulfilling a practical purpose here. it’s not just a soccer setup for a price. it’s does anyone want to use it?
for example, this tournament, if we have any sense, we meet and train west coast. we have atlanta but it doesn’t fit the purpose. get it?
look, deal is, i had a friend who was NT in her sport at chula vista and they almost never had to work around weather, year round. you just work out every day and practice with the team. they don’t have to practice at 7 am or 8 pm to avoid the heat. they don’t have endless thunderstorms in the summer. they just train.
bradenton is complicated. it’s a boarding school, at least used to be IMG. they are there literally every day. you can play in winter when a lot of us are under snow. by being there every day the temperate cooler season temps are valuable. and if it gets hotter part of the year, they have classes during the days anyway, and you just train real early or late. ideally it would have been in socal too. but failing that, the winter temps for a boarding school are useful. but atlanta isn’t a boarding school. it’s you visit a few times a year for isolated camps. if it’s hot those times of year, that’s not a bright choice.
i dunno, do people get the difference in workout quality from a summer workout in socal or colorado or wisconsin vs. georgia? it’s i can run all day and feel great vs. i feel jello legged and tired. and get in a worse training. which, if i then end up playing west coast, seems particularly pointless.
Sweet Srattle hosting the USMNT in the WC! Have to get tickets. That stadium will be rocking for the US. Don’t know if Sofi will be rocking for the US depending on their opponents.
My son in law and daughter live in West Seattle I always take a vacation there every other summer. Going out this year so works perfect end of June just as weather is getting sunny and nice
Looks like me and Jack Daniels will be watching from the couch
Don’t go to hard and pass out sleep 😴 during game. 😂
No way Striker…
Jack and I have an understanding
Luck of the draw. Since I live in Los Angeles my World Cup travel budget just got smaller.
I went to the World Cup in Qatar and beating that World Cup will be hard. It was the equivalent of one city (like L.A. or NY hosting the whole World Cup. Every stadium was a short metro train ride away.
IV,
Did they know they were going to have a west coast schedule when they committed to the Atlanta base construction?
I’ll bet, if they try really , really hard they can find suitable facilities on the west coast, if that’s what they feel they need to do.
the whole point to ending bradenton is there no longer is a national youth residency, for good or ill. so the weather in the school year for training matters less. if you know how YNT work, in the post-residency era, they spend most of their time with select or academies, and they gather a few times a year for (during school) a weekend or spring break or (during summer) a long camp before a tournament. you can see how the senior NT is similar. so the thing will be used on the odd weekend for YNT or MNT/WNT work, but mostly for extended times — summer. the weather is either good for that or not.
there are a bunch of national training centers for sports in this country and they are usually placed where it’s nice weather year round, or useful for altitude training, or at least nice in the summer. a lot are in suburban san diego. san diego most of the year is a steady mild temp. sometimes foggy. but usually predictably pleasant. the players can go 100% at their sport without a bunch of factoring in the weather.
having had a friend in the NT residency for another sport, they shared their base with a few other sports who rotated in and out periodically. people are asking, where does the money come from? nike puts in a chunk. a local college who wants access puts in a chunk. track puts in a chunk. soccer puts in a chunk. etc. etc. we aren’t using it 365 days. we rotate in. but you put it someplace sensible for a june or july camp. i don’t think we can even use this for world cup prep or gold cup preparation. if we have to train at night or at 7 am what’s the point? it’s the right temp in san diego, colorado springs, boston, or minneapolis mid-day in the summer. why compromise?
to be fair, we moved off this theory in recent years but very little in recent years makes a ton of optimized sense.
Larry,
“Gregg Berhalter’s squad will begin their journey through the tournament’s group stage at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium on June 12, before later group stage matches at Lumen Field in Seattle on June 25, and SoFi Stadium on June 26.”
I know these same dates were posted on the US Soccer website, but can the date for the 2nd USMNT group stage be right??? If so, then the 3rd group stage game would be ONE DAY later???
Per the master FIFA schedule, there are group round games scheduled for Seattle on Friday, June 19th. That would be a more logical date for the USMNT’s 2nd group stage game.
Just asking. 🙂
The dates have been updated on the US Soccer website. The 2nd group stage game for the USMNT is on Friday, June, 19th.
yeah it’s 12 19 25 basically two consecutive fridays then a thursday. based on the numbering looks like the first two would be the late games of their day. last game is usually simultaneous for the group so same diff.
meanwhile the team with a west coast schedule and existing setup, is building an atlanta training base.
The project isn’t even supposed to be finished until 2026. The reason it’s in Atlanta is Coca Cola and Arthur Blank not because it was going to be home base for the WC.
How is the Men’s National Team building anything? The parent organization that overseas 27 teams is building a training center in Atlanta. You of course are fully aware of US Soccer’s full responsibilities so we all know your post wasn’t serious but just a snarky jab at US Soccer.
oh come off it. if you have read my posts before you’re fully aware i criticized this project when announced because atlanta is hot in the summer and a poor choice for summer training camps when YNT are out of school (and senior team europeans free for longer camps where the facility might be used by that team).
atlanta is also hardly centrally located for all the kids to congregate. if we’re congregating on a coast for a long training camp enough to want a full facility, california or the upper atlantic coast have better weather for summer soccer camps. in the summer it’s a sauna.
last, re my snark, my sense is these facilities, while treated as permanent efforts, have a shelf life to USSF. they have one of these in st. louis and another in socal. do you hear about them anymore? no. exactly. shelf life. if the thing has shelf life maybe make it useful for concerns of the time the thing exists. like, a world cup training camp. amusing if we build this in georgia then have to choose either sweating our players to death (who then go to mild LA and seattle), or training them at the california base. in which case, update the california base.
i am sure the falcons’ money is at play here. i kind of think USSF is led around by dollar bills these days as opposed to good sense.
IV,
Are you offering up any YOUR funds to either develop the existing facility in CA or KC, or build a new training and development center for US Soccer?
Are you spearheading any efforts to raise and contribute $50M to build a new training and development center for US Soccer?
If not, then pipe down, because whether we agree with it or not, you can’t blame US Soccer for going where the money is.
Papi: you’re just underlining my theory that money trumps common sense. there are reasons a lot of our sports national training centers are in places like chula vista or colorado springs. good year round weather or altitude training. as someone who grew up in the south, in the summers we tended to train at like 7 am or 8 pm to avoid the heat and humidity. it is a dumb training site for long camps which is the point to a training center. that may only get worse with climate change. training in daytime heat and humidity is a good way to get players with muscle and dehydration related issues.
if you want pleasant weather to train, west coast, upper atlantic, up by the great lakes (between fronts).
they had a logic for moving HQ to chicago, and then everyone including coaches up there with them. having a logic that follows is not the same thing as making the best sense in a full analysis. while this center might occasionally be used for YNT weekend camps, the obvious main usage is long summer camps. it is a bad choice for the purpose regardless who pays for it.
IV,
You’re just not rooted in reality, and you need reading comprehension classes.
Money trumps common sense???…common sense by who’s standards?…yours?
If your common sense is the baseline for decisions on where it is best to build a new national training, I refer you back to my last reply to you on this topic…how much money are you bucking up?
papi: i invite you to say, play soccer in minneapolis or colorado in july, or the bay area in september, and compare that to the south in the summer. night and day. you play in the former and you can play as hard as you want and run all day. you play in the latter and you sweat to death and fight your legs. if i am preparing for a major even i want the players focused on hitting their passes and shots just right, and being max fit, and not worried about hydration and whether that cramp is about to be a pull.
there is a reason most countries don’t put their national training sites in a sauna on purpose.
if you want to be disagreeable, bring a soccer team down here and play at 2 pm in july. have at it. then come back and correct yourself. now imagine me setting up a training camp on those premises, with the whole country to choose. yeah, let’s pick the place where you have to train at dawn and dusk.
and buy bug spray.
IV,
I’m not disagreeable. You’re just not rooted in reality, sooo….I reply with…yawn.