Los Angeles – Walk in the corridors of the congress, or the streets of any animated American city, and you will probably meet a 2026 World Cup Exhale without knowing it. This tournament, the WorldThe most mega of mega events is Coming to North America Next summer. But the people who organize it sometimes obtain discouraging and semi-alarming reactions when they mention the World Cup to random Americans or knowledge.
Some will ask: Where is it?
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Or: When? Or even: When is the offer?
While most of the World Cups have flooded and energized their hostsAmericans – with endless options for entertainment, and daily concerns concerning their democracy or their livelihoods, and a relative indifference to football – “do not seem to have a precise understanding” of the celebration that comes on their coasts, as a person close to the planning effort.
And that, throughout 2025, with a constant flow of small football events, is something that hosts hope to change.
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Nine from 11 American stadiums Scheduled to stage the 2026 World Cup will also serve hosts for regional tournaments or the Club World Cup This spring and this summer. The managers of these cities consider 2025 competitions as “tests” of their preparation and their “opportunities”. They know that they must inject their respective regions with the type of consciousness and excitement that would come more naturally to other countries. In Philadelphia, for example, the Club World Cup is an “opportunity to arouse interest and enthusiasm and momentum towards '26,” told Yahoo Sports Meg Kane, CEO of the Hoste Committee of the Philly World Cup.
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And that's more than that.
“We are lucky, to some extent, because the Club World Cup gives us the opportunity to think about how we could want to do things and … to see where we can improve things,” said Kane. She mentioned the evaluation of the security plans and the “resilience” of the Philadelphia public transport system, under the stress of an influx of international football fans. Other reception committee leaders see an opportunity to refute Fear that the United States is actually not ready for millions of visitors.
They all know, of course, that the 2026 World Cup will be a different beast. Although FIFA has told local organizers and representatives of the US government that the Club World Cup will be “as great as the last (male) World Cup”, according to several people who have heard the FIFA land, they know that the 2026 tournament will require resources and processes unlike everything they have implemented.
However, however, they are approaching 2025 as a series of clothing rehearsals – starting with the Concacaf Nations League final at the Sofi stadium in Inglewood, California this week.
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Sofi will host this power test of the best four male national teams in North America and Central America. He will then host the Concacaf Golden Cup matches in June, with an April Friendly opposing the American national women's team against Brazil sandwiched between the two.
“So,” said Adolfo Romero, vice-president of the Sofi stadium events, “we have (three) opportunities to test everything we want to do in preparation for the World Cup.”
The 2026 Branding World Cup illustrated during the unveiling of the new football field in anticipation of the Nations League game and the World Cup in 2026 at the Sofi stadium in Inglewood, California. (Images Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn)
(Imagn Images via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
A test for 2026
Most of the 11 sites, although mainly NFL stadiums, have a wide experience with elite football. Together, they also welcomed nine Super Bowls, seven games for the playoff series of university football and a few dozen nights from Taylor Swift.
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But none has ever hosted anything like what happens in 2026. The main differences include the worldwide nature of the World Cup and its cadence. Each stadium will stage six and more games over a period of several weeks. Each city will also organize festivals of fans. FIFA expects activations on match days and non-matches.
This is, in particular, why the leaders of Sofi and its surrounding campus, Hollywood Park, saw the final of the League of Nations as an opportunity. They start with two semi -finals – US against Panama, Mexico against Canada – Thursday. They end with the third match and the final on Sunday, with two days off between the two.
The calendar, said Romero, is the “same style to a World Cup”; Thus, he and his colleagues saw this as a chance for something of a dry race. They will host a concert Friday, at the Hollywood Park's Theater, a “community day” on Saturday and a “fan zone” with food trucks and other activities throughout the event.
“Hope”, explained Romero to Yahoo Sports, is that “seeing these games come to life and see the natural movement of people in our places and what spaces work, which spaces do not work”, will allow them and their host committee of the World Cup to optimize these spaces next summer.
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Inside the stadium, engineers and agronomists will also assess a Very specialized, highly specialized “hybrid” grasswhich will serve as a “model for the field of the FIFA World Cup 2026”, as said in Yahoo Sports.
And in the locker room, the coaches of the national team will assess their players – who compete for a trophy but also the jockey for the spots of the alignment of the World Cup.
But the usefulness of these games as a preliminary examination extends far beyond white lines-and far beyond Los Angeles.
'This is an overview'
The organizers acknowledge that the Nations League and the Club World Cup are Bit size samples. The “big World Cup”, like a nickname host committee manager, will attract many more fans of a greater variety of nations. This will bring the dignitaries and perhaps President Donald Trump. This will require more buses, more signage, more brains and more police services.
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Security control points and perimeters, for example, will be defined Much further outside the stages that American fans are used to it. The perimeter of the League of Nations, in comparison, will be “totally different from what you would see for a World Cup,” confirmed Romero.
The various competitions also differ organizational. The League of Nations and the Gold Cup are managed by the Concacaf, the Director of Football in North and Central and Caribbean America. The club World Cup is led by FIFA, the world director organ, in partnership with the owners and operators of each respective stadium. The “big World Cup”, on the other hand, is a matter on the city level. The stages And Local governments have signed a series of contracts with FIFA. Each of the 11 localities has formed a “host committee” to fulfill its obligations – and To collect funds to cover the associated costs.
These host committees are not technically involved in the Club World Cup. However, they see it, as “a marked moment to create a lot of energy”, as Alina Hudak said, the CEO of the Miami reception committee, told Yahoo Sports. “And we all know that fundraising is linked to this.”
They will “use it”, as another member of the host committee said, “not only to test our transport and security methods, but also” to arouse interest among potential business sponsors.
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“Nothing is at the level and within the reach of the World Cup,” said this member of the host committee. But there will nevertheless be passionate and practical observers in Miami and Philly, in northern California and North Jersey, Seattle and Atlanta, Houston and Dallas and, from this week, in Los Angeles
“This,” said Romero about the Nations League finals, “is an overview.”
