here my guesses Thursday, 11 June 2026 Match 1 (Mexico #1) – Estadio Azteca Mexico City - 2pm Match 2 – Estadio Guadalajara - 5pm Friday, 12 June 2026 Match 3 (Canada #1) – Toronto Stadium Match 4 (USA #1) – Los Angeles Stadium Saturday, 13 June 2026 Match 5 – Boston Stadium Match 6 – BC Place Vancouver Match 7 – New York New Jersey Stadium Match 8 – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium Sunday, 14 June 2026 Match 9 – Philadelphia Stadium Match 10 – Houston Stadium Match 11 – Dallas Stadium Match 12 – Estadio Monterrey Monday, 15 June 2026 Match 13 – Miami Stadium Match 14 – Atlanta Stadium Match 15 – Los Angeles Stadium Match 16 – Seattle Stadium Tuesday, 16 June 2026 Match 17 – New York New Jersey Stadium Match 18 – Boston Stadium Match 19 – Kansas City Stadium Match 20 – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium Wednesday, 17 June 2026 Match 21 – Toronto Stadium Match 22 – Dallas Stadium Match 23 – Houston Stadium Match 24 – Estadio Azteca Mexico City FIFA World Cup 26™ Host Cities Check out the 16 cities that will play host to FIFA World Cup 26™. Thursday, 18 June 2026 Match 25 – Atlanta Stadium Match 26 – Los Angeles Stadium Match 27 (Canada #2) – BC Place Vancouver Match 28 (Mexico #2) – Estadio Guadalajara Friday, 19 June 2026 Match 29 – Philadelphia Stadium Match 30 – Boston Stadium Match 31 – San Francisco Bay Area Stadium Match 32 (USA #2) – Seattle Stadium Saturday, 20 June 2026 Match 33 – Toronto Stadium Match 34 – Kansas City Stadium Match 35 – Houston Stadium Match 36 – Estadio Monterrey
Even 9 pm should be a possibility for Miami. Any of those dates could have Atlanta at noon, Miami at 9 pm, and the other two sandwiched in between. I think they should try for 6 or 9 pm for Miami, but if there's a match with a top European team, FIFA will be tempted to play it earlier.
Here is my best guess on how they might allocate matches, groups and kick-off times. The 2nd and 3rd columns of each group hold the kick-off-time, local and CEST respectively. Apparently, the match schedule designers cannot keep up with assigning groups strictly to the 3 regions. This becomes obvious especially around June 20 on which 3 matches (not 4) are staged in the central region in Kansas City, Houston and Monterrey. There are no matches in that region on the day before and the day after, which means, that if we have 2 groups with 4 matches on that 2nd matchday designated for central region groups - with strict group assignments - two teams of that 2 groups would have to play 2 days before their other group competitors or 2 days after. I cannot see that happen as in my schedule all of the matches in a group are played on the same day except a special solution for USA and CAN to start on the 2nd matchday both. In my schedule I have 7 cases, where this strict regional allocation rule is broken. One is already obvious with CAN playing both in Toronto and Vancouver. The other 6 I foresee have a little travelling impact except Group K, where San Francisco comes in place as an odd venue, but i absolutely see no other way tailoring it. Of course, kick off times are best guessing and will even be adapted after the draw to accommodate the time zones of participating teams. Yet I wonder if the matches on the last matchday will start as I predicted at 7pm, 10pm and 1 am.
So, broadcasters in WC participant countries paid much less for TV rights than one serving a region without WC representation: - SBS in South Korea: ~30M USD - RTVE in Spain: ~34M USD - Viacom18 in South Asia: ~54M USD And the one that overpaid is an *unimportant market for FIFA*? And I say overpaid because, according to your stats, ~110M Viacom18 viewers (not 25% of the world's population) watched a tournament despite lacking WC representatives. I doubt FIFA considers that region to be an unimportant market for WC broadcasting rights.
The AIFF must be a tire fire, 'cause you know FIFA's itching to give them a major tournament asap and really start to exploit that market.
@Paul Calixte , their have strength in numbers for TV rights. Not sure whether that region can sustain large purchase of expensive WC tickets, though. Resale for-profit might be a larger problem then.
To put it in perspective, there will be more games in the group phase of WC26 than the entire 32 team format WC. And obviously, we now have a group phase that weeds the field down to 32 for the KO round ... which was number of total teams in the old format.
Good point … This is wild… almost like 3 pre world cups before the real 32 team knockout. I see why they may start selling tickets soon.
I thought I read somewhere it might possibly be next March (first phase). This will hopefully be my first World Cup I go to.
Yes, in 1994 the QF in NY/NJ started at 12pm ET (the semifinal and R16 games at 4pm), so 12pm would be optimal both there and globally.
This is still my default position... but the group stages of the Asian Cup & AFCON these last few weeks were far more entertaining than I expected, so there's hope.
Yeah, maybe. I still haven't seen any indication that they plan to sell tickets soon but when you consider the size of the stadiums and that there will be a lot of minnows involved (or at least national teams we don't usually associate with being good enough to reach the World Cup stage), there would seem to be a strong incentive to sell as many tickets as possible before the group stage draw. Once we know the teams involved, I reckon some of the fixtures will be a tougher sell than people think, especially at sky high prices.
I saw on Twitter some users having doubts about the USA hosting the World Cup because of shootings. Do you think security will make supporters avoid US cities ?
Since when does a multi Billion dollar Swiss company care about human death? Come on man... 330 Million in US; 130 Million in Mexico... Please let the rest of the world avoid. please! more tickets for us in North America.
Seems to be following a World Cup tradition. Firearm-related homicides per 100,000 population per year. Brazil 22.91 Mexico 16.50 South Africa 12.92 USA 4.46
It is a fair concern to have, considering the experience of people in other countries. I trust that 2026 WC organizers will choose to be on the safe side, like Cote d'Ivoire gov't officials did during 2024 AFCON: deploy lots of security personnel. After all, prior AFCON editions suffered terrorist attacks, resulting in deaths of players and team staff members. Add insurgents threatening northern Ivorian cities, and you see why 20K security personnel were deployed for 2024 AFCON. Additionally, with a bit of luck, 2026 WC organizers will able to avoid furious fans unable to enter half-empty stadia, as it happened during multiple 2024 AFCON matches. For example: The 2023 Africa Cup organizing committee (COCAN) said the reason there were empty seats for host nation Ivory Coast’s match against Guinea-Bissau in the tournament opener at the 60,000-capacity Alassane Ouattara Stadium on Saturday was because of so-called “dead seats,” which include places with reduced visibility or security seats. Excluding these places would leave the stadium with a useable capacity of 50,786. Yet the stadium announcer gave an attendance of 36,858 people for the tournament’s opening match. It had been billed as a sell-out.
The US stadiums will sell out the day the tickets go on sale. There won't be a need for security personnel to fill empty seats.
I don't recall it being a significant issue at previous major international events in the USA, including in 1994.
IDK if our reputation will really dampen demand much. But I do think that as many if not more shootings seem to happen outside of urban areas. There aren't too many places in the good old USA that one is truly safe from gun violence. Sorry if that sounds as verging on "political" but I'm just trying to present it as factual. Sad facts as they might be. I heard the KC mayor say they had quite a lot of cops on during the Chiefs celebration carnage. Don't have the numbers.
Compared to 1994 most big urban areas are a damn site safer than they were in 1994 and as cities with high homicide rates like St Louis, Chicago, Baltimore and Oakland aren't hosting any games it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Statistically the most dangerous hosting cities in the US are: #8 KC #12 Miami (Miami Gardens) #16 Philly #22 Atlanta #42 Dallas Where they rank in CBS News top 65 "Deadliest US Cities" min 100k population.
Are we really doing the crime stats stuff. Every WC we do the same thing on here. The lame scary lazy narratives. Zero people will avoid the WC'26 due to perceived shootings. It's literally a non issue in regards to the World Cup and this thread.
Mexico is also a host. With its own massive security problems. I'm not overly concerned about security. I live in Downtown Los Angeles where we run the risk of getting stabbed my a vagrant every time we pump gas. I don't ride public transportation in LA; and I don't recommend anyone doing so. I'm a bit immune to the safety concerns in big cities. Everyone is the owner of their own fear and will act accordingly.
If you don't feel safe pumping gas or riding transit in Los Angeles then you definitely wouldn't feel safe in London, Milan or Marseille. That's just a big city thing. I'm the opposite. I feel pretty safe anywhere. I was wandering around downtown Los Angeles only last year. I used to travel to away matches in England in the 70s and 80s and that sort of gives you a thick hide.
I live in the most dangerous city in the US and rarely feel any actual danger. Like all big cities, you need to be aware of your surroundings. Are their areas of my city I would not walk around at night? sure. But also I have zero reason to ever be even near those areas.