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

I went to Germany 2006 with a 6 month old and a 2 year old. But I was a lot younger. Lot's of work but still made it work. Congratulations on your baby.

 

They’ll have some flexibility with the scheduling, and they’ve said they won’t assign specific match numbers until after the draw. It’s halfway between the full flexibility we saw in Doha and the rigid pre-draw assignment of “M14: B1 vs B2, Samara 16 June 18:00” that we saw in 2014 and 2018.

This time, there are only two stadium options in each group on a given day. So looking at 15 June as an example, Group H is playing in Atlanta and Miami and Group G in Seattle and LA, with all kickoff times and teams TBD. I would think the match order (e.g. B1 plays B3 then B2 then B4) would need to be set before the draw, from a competition/fairness perspective. But maybe that’s not a given either.

Could we speculate that if we have Colombia vs England in that group, they specifically put that one in Miami and save Colombia vs Jordan for the Group H matchday in Guadalajara? And do these teams even want to play in the heat and humidity of Miami or the altitude of Guadalajara when they could play inside in Atlanta and Houston? Does FIFA care about intentionally giving teams a disadvantage like that via manual assignment of cities? And that doesn’t even touch on the complications of kickoff times with consideration to home country timezone and local host city weather and timezone.

A lot of variables here.

 

A hypothetical England- Colombia in Miami would probably be the most expensive secondary market Group Stage game in history and probably would hold that record for a very long time.

And FIFA would have to bulk up security and have Police on horses for most of the match based on the Copa America Final.

 

wasn't aware there was beef between both countries. lol

 

Not really a beef per se.

Just more about there are a lot of Brits who love traveling to Miami.
And there's a lot of Colombians living in Florida/ love to travel there too.

Colombians remember 2018 and think if tactics were a bit different and James would have played we would have been the ones going to the Semis. But it was just not meant to be.
Playing them in Miami for "revenge" would be epic. Especially since there's lots of crazy Colombian fanatics there as we saw last summer.

 

I then C1, C2, C3, C4 will be set before the draw, but who gets Miami vs who gets Atlanta will be the question. I personally think that the Canada/Mexico stadiums not Azteca will get the 'lesser' matches as they are smaller. Also if a matchup makes sense due to immigrant population of that city and whatnot, that will draw certain matchups to certain locations.

 

Yeah agreed, I think they’ll have to the match ordering before the draw (Matchday 1: C1 vs C4, C2 vs C3 etc). That’s a bit less chaotic. For a given group’s matchday, they’d just be assigning each match to one of two cities. And then picking a kickoff time with consideration to time zones and potential weather.

Probably don’t want a West Coast game kicking off at 9am local time or a Miami, Santa Clara, KC, or Northeast outdoor game at 12 or 3pm ET, if it’s avoidable. But I would also assume substantial pressure from the European federations to not kick off at 12am or 3am in Europe, if we’re deliberately picking kickoff times (rather than assigning by random draw).

 

That would be a huge change. Match day 1 is always : A1vA2, A3vA4. Day 2: A1vA3, A2vA4, Day 3: A1vA4, A2vA3.
I dont see a reason to change it. After the draw we'll know the matchup. they can assign the Premium match to the biggest stadium and the best time slot. Hosts will always get the best time slot etc.

 

You're right, I was confusing myself with the pots vs group position. Pot 2 is not A2, B2, etc (with the exception of Pot 1 being A1, B1, etc). For the others, they draw a team into a group (A) and then draw again to place them as A2/A3/A4. But as you said, the matchday order always runs A1-A2 / A3-A4 then A1-A3 / A2-A4 then A1-A4 / A2-A3.

I'll have to look at the schedule in depth when applying for tickets. We can say the Pot 1 team is more likely to be the big, high demand match. But even then, there's not always an obvious choice between the two cities. And some big draws like Colombia, Germany, Italy, Croatia are destined for Pot 2.

 

Ive been doing some analysis and my guess is:
Saturday June 13; group C seed plays M7 in NY
Sunday June 14; group F seed plays M11 in Dallas. Group E could go either way (Hou or Phil)
Monday June 15; group G seed plays M15 in LA. Group H could go either way (Miami or ATL)
Tuesday June 16; group I seed plays M17 NY. Group J seed I'm guessing M20 SF over KC.

etc....

 

Friend to friend... go to the games, a few weeks away is a good thing. Trust me.

 

I'm going to be the KCMO word police the next 18 months. Ha.

#missouri

 

@ernie_22 just say you’re going for diapers and come back in a few weeks.

 

I agree - the format of group play has always followed the same format has it not? Ie A1 always plays A2, then A3 and finally A4. A1 comes from the top seeds (pot A), A2 from the bottom seeds (pot D), A3 from pot C and A4 from pot B. Of course it doesn't entirely end up that way as they impose a number of restrictions - like no two teams from the same confederation (except UEFA) in the same group. In this manner, the strongest seeded teams almost always open with a weak opponent. So the groupings are all random within those restrictions.

For 2026, as all the matches are already designated to a certain stadium,and each group plays in 4 or 5 stadiums. The 3 groups seeded by Mexico, Canada and the USA have their matches per-assigned, so there can be no subjective decisions on where to put certain matches for those 3 groups. For the other 9 groups, they will have the opportunity for each match to be placed in any of the 4 or 5 stadiums, so they will have some latitude to push certain matches to certain markets, and I am sure they will do that, but there will be limitations.

What is interesting is that after grouping cities into 3 geographic zones to minimize travel and time-zone differences during group play, they pretty much abandoned that for many of the groups: groups A, B, E, F, H, J, K all play in more than 1 geographic zone - that's 7 of the 12 groups! WTF FIFA? Looks to me that they didn't get their city selection right to properly distribute the matches into the geographic zones ;-)

 

Yes predictable to a point, but in the end they still have to fill stadiums with matches and so will be limited to how they manipulate...

 

This is some cherry picking. Yes 6 groups have are not in all one zone but come on.

A- The one match not Central is in Atlanta which is less than an hour further by flight than the Texas stadiums and closer than KC
B- This is b/c god forbid Canada wants to play in both it's cites. Yes another team has to do cross country travel but if you were to give the option to every team in the World Cup of doing that flight and in return having Canada as the seeded team in their group. Every team takes that.
E- This one will suck for 1-2 teams.
F- They are all Central.
H- East and Central but the East coasts are Miami/Atlanta which are closer to Texas than to the Northeast they are grouped with. Will have less travel than an all West Coast group.
J- Yeah this one sucks for 1-2 teams.
K- Same as H.

 

No I misspoke, what you are saying here is correct.

I agree Europe will push for no 3 am kickoffs or something, but a team like England will have a lot more pull than say Slovenia in getting that wish.

The US generally doesn't like kicking off any event before Noon, so I would be shocked if a West Coast match does that.

 

"A few weeks" ??

I don't even have kids and know that is impossible. A few hours, maybe.

 

It is being reported by The Athletic that World Cup tickets for the group stage will average at $305.

 

For Qatar: Cat 1 was $220, Cat 2 was $165 and Cat 3 was $69.

Lets go with what I have seen in the past, 2/3 of the Stadium is Cat 1, 1/3 is split evenly between 2/3.

Basic match. Qatar average price was $185. 60% increase isn't 'good' but I am more or less ok with it.

Edit:

I looked up what the US proposed to FIFA in the application packet.
Cat 1: $323, Cat 2: $304, Cat 3: $174

Using my same logic the average price would be $295.

Maybe they are factoring in some luxury or the price of Cat 1 is slightly higher, but those prices hold up if the Athletic is right.

 

Maybe inflation since the application of proposal.

 

Yeah, your math seems spot on. Not sure if those $5000+ hospitality ticket prices I've been hearing about are in included in the average. Probably not.

 

B- This is b/c god forbid Canada wants to play in both it's cites. Yes another team has to do cross country travel but if you were to give the option to every team in the World Cup of doing that flight and in return having Canada as the seeded team in their group. Every team takes that.

The USA and Mexico also play in two cities in their country too nes pah? No chance any of the host nations got to have all 3 matches in one stadium...

 

My best bet for a game is going to be Kansas City. I am cheap. It is the closest to drive to from Chicago. There is probably going to be some match like Oman-Panama that no one wants to attend and the secondary market will sell game day tickets for like half the price.

 

Hey has anyone found a link to a high resolution pdf schedule?