2026 World Cup Host Cities & Venues Announced, USMNT To Play On West Coast

FIFA announced the host cities and venues for the 2026 World Cup set to take place in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

In total, 16 cities were chosen, 11 in the U.S. and three in Canada and Mexico. The tournament will kick off in Mexico City on June 11 at Estadio Azteca and conclude on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The USMNT already has three matches set that they will play, two at Sofi Stadium in Inglewood on June 12 and 25, as well as one at Lumen Field in Seattle on June 19.

The other cities that will host World Cup games in the U.S. are Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia and San Fransisco. Included in the 78 games hosted by the U.S. out of the 104 total in the tournament are also the semifinal games, which will take place in AT&T Stadium in Dallas and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. All of the quarterfinal-round games will also be played in the U.S. Each venue will host four to eight games across the entirety of the tournament.

Cities hosting the event are broken up into three groups that teams will more or less stay to minimize travel time and excess spending. The East region will have Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia, New York and Toronto. The Central region has Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. The West will have Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Seattle and Vancouver as its regional host cities. The multiple venues in different cities across three different countries differ heavily from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which had a total of eight venues in a space of only 22 square miles.

The 2026 World Cup in North America will be the first since 2002 that multiple nations host the event, and will be the first in tournament history with 48 teams instead of the 36 that have been invited in the past. There will be 104 games in 39 days, with a span of 27 straight days, with at least one game on. The tournament is also expected to have an average of at least four games per day in the first two weeks of competition.

One game, in particular, might catch American fans’ attention, that being a round of 16 game at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on July 4. The game would be on America’s 250th anniversary, and the USMNT could play in that game for a significant patriotic moment. The game is in the knockout round, so it isn’t guaranteed that the U.S. will go that far, but they did make it to the round of 16 in 2022, 2014 and 2010, which bodes well for fans already circling that match.

Though the dates and locations are set, the actual times and teams playing in those games are still unknown. As has been precedent, the hosting countries of America, Canada and Mexico will all have an automatic bid for the competition, but other nations will need to qualify to make it. FIFA will announce the official 48 tournament teams that qualified and put them in 12 different groups, but that will come in December 2025 after other international tournaments have concluded. Once the teams and groups are decided, then times will be set.

Currently, there is no way to buy tickets for the 2026 World Cup now, but fans can register for early interest on the official FIFA website.

Article by Eli Gregorski