{"id":84369,"date":"2025-12-07T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/84369\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T00:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:01:07","slug":"heat-could-be-on-at-2026-world-cup-indoor-games-should-help-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/84369\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat could be on at 2026 World Cup; indoor games should help \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

For teams coming to next year’s FIFA World Cup<\/a>, Friday was about learning opponents.<\/p>\n

Saturday was for finding out other logistics \u2014 the sites and times of games.<\/p>\n

The entire schedule for the 2026 tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States was revealed Saturday<\/a>, a day after the draw divided the 48-team field into a dozen groups of four for the preliminary round. Now every team knows how much travel it will face while playing its first \u2014 and possibly only \u2014 three games. They can also estimate how much the heat will be a factor.<\/p>\n

Even Canada coach Jesse Marsch \u2014 whose team will stay north of the border in Toronto and Vancouver while playing in Group B \u2014 is taking the weather into account. Canada opens in Toronto against the winner of a European playoff, and that game is at 3 p.m. so it could conceivably be pretty warm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re going to make sure our guys are fit,\u201d Marsch said. \u201cWe’re going to make sure that they acclimatize to what the weather could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heat has long been an issue at World Cups. The Qatar tournament in 2022 was played later in the year because of it. The last time the U.S. hosted a World Cup in 1994, games were mostly during the day. That was convenient for television viewers in Europe, but it made for some sweltering conditions in places like the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.<\/p>\n

Over three decades later, that venue isn’t being used at the 2026 World Cup. Instead, games in the Dallas area will be played in Arlington, Texas, at AT&T Stadium \u2014 and the home of the NFL’s Cowboys has a retractable roof. So do the stadiums in Houston and Atlanta that are being used.<\/p>\n

SoFi Stadium \u2014 the Los Angeles Rams’ home in Inglewood, California \u2014 has a roof, but air from the outside can flow in. With five afternoon games on the schedule, SoFi is a spot where temperatures could soar.<\/p>\n

The Mexican sites \u2014 Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Estadio Akron in Guadalajara and Estadio BBVA in Monterrey \u2014 could become heat concerns as well. American soccer fans are well aware of how oppressive conditions at Azteca can be, in terms of both the temperature and the altitude, for visiting teams. But in this tournament, almost all the games at the three Mexican venues are at night.<\/p>\n

The data<\/p>\n

Here are the group stage games where heat is most likely to be an issue at kickoff. This is based on 30-year averages of Accuweather’s \u201cRealFeel\u201d temperature. Because of their roofs, Arlington, Houston and Atlanta are not included. All times local:<\/p>\n

88 degrees \u2014 Switzerland vs. Winner of European Playoff A (June 18 at 12 p.m. in Inglewood)<\/p>\n

87 degrees \u2014 Belgium vs. Iran (June 21 at 12 p.m. in Inglewood)<\/p>\n

87 degrees \u2014 Cura\u00e7ao vs. Ivory Coast (June 25 at 4 p.m. in Philadelphia)<\/p>\n

86 degrees \u2014 Tunisia vs. Netherlands (June 25 at 6 p.m. in Kansas City, Missouri)<\/p>\n

85 degrees \u2014 Scotland vs. Brazil (June 24 at 6 p.m. in Miami Gardens, Florida)<\/p>\n

85 degrees \u2014 Ecuador vs. Germany (June 25 at 4 p.m. in East Rutherford, New Jersey)<\/p>\n

85 degrees \u2014 Norway vs. France (June 26 at 3 p.m. in Foxborough, Massachusetts)<\/p>\n

84 degrees \u2014 Qatar vs. Switzerland (June 13 at 12 p.m. in Santa Clara, California)<\/p>\n

84 degrees \u2014 Uruguay vs. Cape Verde (June 21 at 6 p.m. in Miami Gardens)<\/p>\n

84 degrees \u2014 South Africa vs. South Korea (June 24 at 7 p.m. in Monterrey)<\/p>\n

84 degrees \u2014 Saudi Arabia vs. Uruguay (June 15 at 6 p.m. in Miami Gardens)<\/p>\n

84 degrees \u2014 Winner of European Playoff B vs. Tunisia (June 14 at 8 p.m. in Monterrey)<\/p>\n

Convenient schedules<\/p>\n

The following teams have back-to-back group stage games at the same site, eliminating the need for travel in between:<\/p>\n

\u2014 South Korea plays its first two matches in Guadalajara<\/p>\n

\u2014 Canada plays its second and third matches in Vancouver, British Columbia<\/p>\n

\u2014 Scotland plays its first two matches in Foxborough<\/p>\n

\u2014 Paraguay plays its second and third matches in Santa Clara<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tunisia plays its first two matches in Monterrey<\/p>\n

\u2014 Iran plays its first two matches in Inglewood<\/p>\n

\u2014 New Zealand plays its second and third matches in Vancouver<\/p>\n

\u2014 Spain plays its first two matches in Atlanta<\/p>\n

\u2014 Uruguay plays its first two matches in Miami Gardens<\/p>\n

\u2014 Senegal plays its first two matches in East Rutherford<\/p>\n

\u2014 Argentina plays its second and third matches in Arlington<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jordan plays its first two matches in Santa Clara<\/p>\n

\u2014 Portugal plays its first two matches in Houston<\/p>\n

\u2014 Panama plays its first two matches in Toronto<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLearn about the World Cup\u2019s most exciting and dramatic group drawing, the Group of Death.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For teams coming to next year’s FIFA World Cup, Friday was about learning opponents. Saturday was for finding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[15392,11190,48,52,51,47,50,49,1083],"class_list":{"0":"post-84369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-2026-world-cup","9":"tag-fifa-world-cup","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-headlines","12":"tag-la-news","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","15":"tag-los-angeles-news","16":"tag-soccer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}