![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/MIA_01WORLDCUPSTORE.JPG\" "\\"MIA_01WORLDCUPSTORE.JPG\\"")
St. Thomas University soccer player Ricky Martinez, 22, balances a soccer ball on his head while he and others wait to enter the new FIFA World Cup store on Monday in Miami Beach. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is just weeks away, and South Florida is at the center of the action.<\/p>\n
From Haiti\u2019s historic return to the tournament to Shakira\u2019s new anthem, here are the top World Cup stories making headlines:<\/p>\n
Haiti celebrates World Cup return on Flag Day: Haitians gathered at the annual Compas Festival in North Miami to celebrate Haiti\u2019s return to the FIFA World Cup for the first time in 52 years<\/a>, with a marquee June 19 matchup against Brazil in Philadelphia.Shakira drops new World Cup anthem \u2018Dai Dai\u2019: The Colombian superstar released a new anthem with Nigerian artist Burna Boy<\/a> ahead of the tournament, blending Latin pop with Afrobeats. Shakira will headline the July 19 World Cup final halftime show at MetLife Stadium, and will perform two shows at Miami\u2019s Kaseya Center on July 1 and 2.First official FIFA World Cup store opens in South Beach: Fans lined up in the rain Monday for the grand opening of the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Store at 1006 Lincoln Rd.<\/a>, the first of 40 retail locations across 16 host cities. Four more stores will open in Miami-Dade County before South Florida hosts seven matches at Hard Rock Stadium from June 15 to July 18.Miami hotel bookings fall short of expectations: With just a few weeks until the opening match, hotel reservations are not matching the hype<\/a>, and FIFA has returned blocks of rooms to several hotels due to lack of demand. High ticket costs, concerns over Trump administration immigration policies and overall travel expenses are deterring international fans, particularly Europeans.<\/p>\n This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Thomas University soccer player Ricky Martinez, 22, balances a soccer ball on his head while he and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-277874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}