The 2026 World Cup final will be played on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

FIFA made the announcement in a Miami television studio on Sunday, with the opening match of the 39-day tournament scheduled for June 11 at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

The semifinals will be played on July 14 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and the following day at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

The quarterfinals will be played on July 9 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, the following day at Sofay Stadium in Inglewood, California, and the following day at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri and Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on July 11. . The third place match will take place on July 18 at Hard Rock.

The U.S. team opens at SoFi on June 12, then plays at Lumen Field in Seattle seven days later and concludes the group stage at SoFi on June 25.

AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys who had hoped to host the Finals, has the most games of any venue with nine.

FIFA officials have not publicly explained their site’s decision-making process.

FIFA expanded the World Cup from 32 to 48 countries and increased the number of matches from 64 to 104. The 2026 tournament will be jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, with all quarterfinal games being played in the United States, FIFA announced on 16 sites in 2022.

Canada will play its first first-round match on June 12 in Toronto, then its next two matches in Vancouver, British Columbia on June 18 and 24.

A nation would have to play eight matches to win the title, up from seven since 1982.

Other American sites are Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts; NRG Stadium in Houston; Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri; Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

The matches in Mexico will also be played at Estadio BBVA in Monterrey and Estadio Akron in Guadalajara.

All 11 stadiums in the US are home to NFL teams. Hard Rock Stadium will host the Copa America Final this year on July 14, while MetLife was the venue for the 2016 Copa America Final.

Both were in the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals at Azteca.

When the United States hosted the 24-nation, 52-game tournament in 1994, the final was at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and the opening game was at Soldier Field in Chicago.

With the additional teams, the length of the tournament will increase from 29 days in the shortened 2022 schedule in Qatar and 32 days for the 2018 tournament in Russia.

Only one match will involve a team that does not have at least three days off. FIFA divided the group stage into Eastern, Central and Western regions and intended to shorten the journey for the group winners.

Stadiums in Arlington, Atlanta and Houston have retractable roofs that are expected to close due to the summer heat, and Inglewood and Vancouver have intact roofs.

Artificial turf will be replaced with grass in Arlington, Atlanta, East Rutherford, Foxboro, Houston, Inglewood and Vancouver.

Several venues, including AT&T and MetLife, are expected to widen their surface to accommodate the 75-by-115 yard (68-by-105 m) playing field.

FIFA has not announced kick-off times. The 1994 championship began at 12:30 p.m. PDT (3:30 p.m. EDT and 9:30 p.m. in Central Europe) but the start has been moved up in recent years as the Asian television market has become more important to FIFA. Is. The 2022 final in Qatar started at 5pm local time (10pm EDT, 4pm in Central Europe and 10pm in Beijing).