{"id":84428,"date":"2025-12-07T00:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/84428\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T00:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:51:09","slug":"who-will-play-world-cup-matches-in-l-a-wave-of-teams-joins-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/84428\/","title":{"rendered":"Who will play World Cup matches in L.A.? Wave of teams joins U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0In soccer terms, the schedule for the 2026 World Cup<\/a> is probably something of a draw for the Los Angeles host committee<\/a>. The U.S. will play two of its three group-play games<\/a> at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which is good. But Brazil, Germany, France and England and defending champion Argentina will travel no farther west than Dallas during the first round, which is bad.<\/p>\n

Instead, Iran and New Zealand, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, will play in two of the other five first-round games in Southern California. Not exactly the teams organizers hoped for.<\/p>\n

But if that\u2019s the black cloud, there is a silver lining in L.A.\u2019s geography.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be great to have some of those premier matchups,\u201d said Adam Burke, president and chief executive of the L.A. tourism and convention board. \u201cBut the numbers from FIFA are remarkable in terms of the number of people who are going to come here and are going to spend five to 10 days in L.A., almost irrespective of who plays, because we\u2019re the primary Western gateway.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo a lot of fans are going to start their World Cup experience here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnchored by the U.S. is wonderful. And you\u2019ve got a huge Persian population here, so it\u2019s exciting,\u201d added LAFC co-president Larry Freedman, the co-chair of the World Cup host committee. \u201cJust the fact that we now know who\u2019s coming, who the U.S. is playing, who else is coming here, it\u2019s pretty exciting.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m not going to get hung up on would\u2019ve, should\u2019ve, could\u2019ve if France was coming here. It\u2019s going to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next summer\u2019s World Cup<\/a>, the largest and most complex ever, will kick off June 11 in Mexico City with Mexico playing South Africa and conclude with the July 19 final in East Rutherford, N.J. In between there will be 102 games at 16 venues in three countries.<\/p>\n

SoFi Stadium will play host to eight matches, beginning with the U.S. opener against Paraguay on June 12. The Americans will finish group play in Inglewood on June 25, playing the winner of a March playoff involving Slovakia, Kosovo, Turkey and Romania. Two Group G matches \u2014 Iran vs. New Zealand on June 15 and Iran-Belgium on June 21 \u2014 also will be played in SoFi, sandwiched around a Group B match between Switzerland and the winner of another European playoff, this one featuring Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy and Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

The teams for the three knockout-stage games to be played at SoFi \u2014 round-of-32 games on June 28 and July 2 and a quarterfinal on July 10 \u2014 haven\u2019t been determined but the possibilities include Mexico, South Korea, Canada, Spain, Austria and Algeria.<\/p>\n

\"Fans <\/p>\n

Fans watch a friendly match between English soccer clubs Manchester United and Arsenal at SoFi Stadium in July 2024.<\/p>\n

(Ronald Martinez \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Burke thinks an economic-impact report that estimated the World Cup will be worth $594 million to Los Angeles County is too conservative.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a 39-day opportunity. The match days are huge [but] the tag we\u2019ve been using is \u2018start your World Cup journey in Los Angeles,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBecause we\u2019ve got so much direct air service and so much accessibility as a hub, it actually works really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus Iran\u2019s visit to L.A. also could wind up being a big boost. Although the country is not among the tournament favorites, its two first-round matches will be big draws in Los Angeles, home to the largest concentration of Iranians outside Iran. And Burke is hopeful some fans from the Middle East will be able to come as well.<\/p>\n

Iran is one of 19 countries whose citizens are banned from entering the U.S. or restricted by the Trump administration<\/a>. Exceptions to that ban include players, coaches, media and technical officials coming for the World Cup, and that window could be widened to include World Cup spectators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been active discussions about whether they would be able to make a similar exception for ticketed fans,\u201d Burke said. \u201cOur hope is that that might be something that still occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five of the eight matches at SoFi will kick off at noon, three on weekdays That could be punishing for both commuters and the players because while the stadium has a roof, it is not enclosed nor climate controlled. Last summer\u2019s Club World Cup was plagued by high heat and humidity<\/a>, which hampered play at venues across the country. And a recent report compiled by Football for the Future, Common Goal and Jupiter Intelligence determined that could happen again<\/a> next summer since 10 of the 16 stadiums to be used in the World Cup are at \u201cvery high risk or experiencing extreme heat-stress conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the warning, more than half the 104 World Cup games are scheduled to start no later than 6 p.m. local time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hot in the summer in the United States,\u201d said Alexi Lalas, a defender on the U.S. team that played in the 1994 World Cup, the last one played in North America. \u201cIt was hot in the summer of 1994 and, news flash, it will be hot in the summer of 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not for everyone. Four of the 16 World Cup stadiums are enclosed with air conditioning and nine teams \u2014 Argentina, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Cape Verde, Uzbekistan, Canada and Japan \u2014 will play two of their three first-round games indoors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a competitive advantage,\u201d Lalas said. \u201cEspecially for teams with older players like [Lionel<\/a>] Messi<\/a> and [Cristiano<\/a>] Ronaldo<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0In soccer terms, the schedule for the 2026 World Cup is probably something of a draw for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[47666,423,47663,19378,2624,48,52,51,47,50,49,47665,2458,47664,16408,47662,35345,36690,12967,2281,47661],"class_list":["post-84428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-champion-argentina","tag-game","tag-inglewood-venue","tag-iran","tag-june","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-march-playoff-playoff","tag-mexico-city","tag-new-zealand","tag-round","tag-southern-california-business","tag-spain","tag-switzerland","tag-tournament","tag-u-s","tag-world-cup-match"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84428","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=84428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}