Going to North America '26: tickets, accommodations, etc. (non-politics)

So deep diving into which cities are going to get the best games. Seeded means that the seeded team will be playing in that city, so the odds of getting a better matchup increase. I used some presumptions.
1. All non-US stadiums except Mexico City will get the unseeded matchups.
2. LA, NY, Dallas get the seeded matchups in US vs US matchups, I also give SF the edge over KC.
3. These are the tossup matchups that you can use to judge your options: ATL vs MIA (x4), PHL vs BOS, PHL vs HOU, MXC vs HOU

Los Angeles: 4 seeded, 1 unseeded (unseeded is the other matchup in Canada's group)
San Francisco: 1 seeded, 4 unseeded
Vancouver: 2 seeded, 3 unseeded
Dallas: 5 seeded (it could have 1 unseeded in a matchup vs SF)
Guadalajara: 1 seeded, 3 unseeded
Houston: 3 seeded, 2 toss-up
Kansas City: 1 seeded, 3 unseeded
Mexico City: 2 seeded, 1 toss-up
Monterrey: 3 unseeded
Atlanta: 1 unseeded, 4 toss-up
Boston: 2 seeded, 1 unseeded, 1 toss-up
Miami: 4 toss-up
New York: 5 seeded
Philadelphia: 3 unseeded, 2 toss-up
Toronto: 1 seeded, 4 unseeded

 

In queue...

 

If I remember rightly from the resale site for Paris 2024 those who bought tickets direct could only resell them on the resale site, not those who had a ticket transferred to them.

 

Nope. I only went on the site like 5 minutes before it opened though so I assume I'm at the back of the queue. I assume it would randomize when it opened, silly me for thinking FIFA would do that.

 

Nope, when i got in only africa teams, next day a friend got colombia,,

 

Looks like I have 45 min or so to go

 

Thats more than 45 min…

 

I just got a timer half way through the circle: 29 minutes.

 

33 min in the queue so far, past the midway point

Countdown clock just came on 23 minutes

 

I was kidding. sure you can drive, just take care to book the parking slot before those are sold out, unless you‘ve got an alternative solution

 

Hey everyone. Process went smoothly. Managed to get two cat 2 VST3 packages for Azteca!

 

Looks similar to most other deep dive since the pairings were released. I think there'll still be one or two unexpected curve balls. And if course it's all higher likelihood not definite. Perhaps they choose to give each city one seeded non host game then Guadalajara gets a good #48 or #66, give Toronto a decent #46 or #62 etc. But kind of doubt they will as everything about this world cup so far is just about money.

 

Yeah, I think the curveballs would be a lot less surprising. Maybe giving Boston or Philadelphia a seeded game over New York sort of thing. Or if a Toronto or Guadalajara gets a seeded game it's a situation where it is Belgium / New Zealand vs Colombia / Norway. Although it that scenario, I would just adjust my phrasing from seeded vs unseeded to better matchup.

 

Just got in after about an hour in the queue.

Got four TST3's for Australia. $USD775 each. Ouch.

Good to know FIFA follows there own geographic splits with Australia being included within Oceania after freaking out when I thought it was the only Asian country with no TST's available.

For those saying only African countries had TST's- at the top of the window with the countrys there are tabs for each continent.

 

What's the prefered browser to use? I used Chrome but my page went blank.

 

Same for me

 

Thought I'd share my experience for those who get a slot in the coming days.

A couple of hours before the sale went live, I got an email reminding me of it. The email contains a link with the url of the sales portal. I clicked it at 10:30 ET and it took me to a waiting room. The waiting room refreshes every 5 minutes. At 10:50, the page will refresh and a numeric captcha will appear. Fill it quickly to join the queue.

Once in the queue, you'll see this circular progress indicator with the message "in queue". Shortly before the progress reaches 50% (which in my case took about 20 minutes), a ~27 minutes timer will appear. Once it reaches zero, a button will show up to access the portal. Click it, log in, and you'll be directed to the tickets site. Some things to note here: 1. As in previous world cups, you do not need to log in to join the queue. So it's probably possible to open multiple tabs in different devices to try to get the best place. I did not try this though. 2. Some people on reddit reported that after logging in they were sent back to the queue. Luckily for me, this was not the case.

Once inside the tickets portal, you'll see the 3 different types of products listed from top to bottom: individual match tickets, team specific tickets, and venue specific tickets. I was only interested in Mexico tickets. First I looked for the tst packages but there were only wheelchair tickets. I then looked for the Azteca vst packages. There were tickets of all cats available. I tried adding two cat 3 packages to my cart, but then I got a small error message. Then tried with cat 2 and got the same result. I started refreshing the page and noticed some cats were greyed out now. I kept refreshing for a few times, and eventually the cat 2 showed as available again. This time I was able to cart them and proceeded to checkout. Once you pay, there's a "continue shopping" button. I clicked it but it took me back to the queue.

Overall the whole process went smoothly. I was done by 11:40 ET.

 

You can do it; it's just a question of if you want to do the long drive. An equivalent distance on your side of the country would be Tampa to NYC. Are you doing it to avoid airfare? To do several days of driving with sightseeing?

 

Chrome

 

Chrome would not work for me, the captcha didn't work. I pivoted and used safari and it worked fine. Had a friend this morning who reported the same thing. This was to get into the initial queue before 8am so it didn't impact anything

 

was able to get to the round of 32 both games in LA, Cat 2.
Quarter round was already sold out

 

The fact that it's day 3 or 4 of presale and the allotment for the early rounds hasn't yet sold out is a good sign IMO. It indicates the demand isn't really there at the price points FIFA initially set - even more so when you consider this sales phase is tilted towards more diehard fans with less elastic demand.

 

So frustrating. Only showing the sold out tsts for me

 

Guys I just want to say massive, incredible shoutout to HugoSanchez who helped me buying two Guadalajara VST's, I'm going to do a lifelong dream of taking my 73 year old father to a world cup mexico game in the city he was born in!!!