June 14,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
East Rutherford NJ, For the first time in 32 years, the men’s World Cup is coming back to North America. FIFA’s 200-plus member associations gathered in Moscow on Wednesday and voted to award 2026 World Cup hosting rights to the United States, Canada and Mexico.
In a coup for the Trump administration , 60 of 80 games will be in the United States, with 10 apiece in Canada and Mexico. Those 60 include every game from the quarterfinals onward. Canada and Mexico have proposed three host cities each: Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton will stage games north of the U.S. border, while Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey will be match sites down south.
The U.S. has proposed the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.) for the opener; Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta) and AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Tex.) for semifinals; and New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, N.J.) for the final , which will have a capacity of more than 87,000 for the event. Unlike this year, the United States will automatically qualify for the World Cup as a host country.