{"id":156604,"date":"2026-04-03T20:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/156604\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T20:16:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T20:16:26","slug":"mini-soccer-pitch-opens-at-dilworth-park-as-philadelphia-continues-countdown-to-2026-fifa-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/156604\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini soccer pitch opens at Dilworth Park as Philadelphia continues countdown to 2026 FIFA World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

The countdown continues to the six 2026 FIFA World Cup matches<\/a>\u00a0in Philadelphia. In the spirit of it all, Dilworth Park is now home to a miniature pitch.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been working on this project for a year,” Keri Murschell, director of sponsorship and community marketing at NRG, said, “and we’re so excited that today is the day of the official launch of the Vivant NRG pitch.”<\/p>\n

Not long after officially cutting the ribbon, the pitch was getting good use by some young soccer players, including 5-year-old Sam. His dad, Adam Robinson, also tested out the turf.<\/p>\n

“There are already so many people here on a Friday morning,” Robinson said. “Think what it’s going to be when it comes to the weekend, when it comes to the summer, when it comes to the World Cup<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

There’s also cornhole, giant lawn games and chairs for people to enjoy in the space.<\/p>\n

“We will have activities all summer long,” Murschell said. “There will be games that NRG is providing.”<\/p>\n

Four-year-old Josie Weckel came out with her twin brother, George and mom, Maddie.<\/p>\n

Her favorite part of the day?<\/p>\n

“Playing soccer,” Josie said with a smile.<\/p>\n

The 7,000 square foot mini soccer field sits near where the pickleball courts used to be and not far away from the FIFA World Cup countdown clock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Dilworth Park is at the heart of Center City and Philadelphia,” Amy Genda, vice president of strategy and design for Center City District, said.<\/p>\n

The mini pitch is free to use and open to the public at Dilworth Park through October.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The countdown continues to the six 2026 FIFA World Cup matches\u00a0in Philadelphia. In the spirit of it all,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1157,28,69,71,70,11868,2236],"class_list":{"0":"post-156604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-center-city","9":"tag-pennsylvania","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","12":"tag-philadelphia-news","13":"tag-soccer","14":"tag-world-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}