{"id":191570,"date":"2026-05-13T20:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/191570\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T20:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:59:09","slug":"a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-lincoln-financial-fields-2026-fifa-world-cup-makeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/191570\/","title":{"rendered":"A behind the scenes look at Lincoln Financial Field’s 2026 FIFA World Cup makeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 FIFA World Cup<\/a>\u00a0is less than a month away, and Philadelphia is one of the host cities<\/a>\u00a0for the biggest sporting event on the planet.<\/p>\n

Lincoln Financial Field has a perfect pitch. The Linc will host six World Cup matches<\/a>\u00a0with the first on June 14. On Wednesday, CBS News Philadelphia got a first-hand look at the transformation of the field from the pitch to the signage.<\/p>\n

“We are most excited about being able to showcase Philadelphia and Lincoln Financial Field for the world,” Meg Kane, host city executive and CEO of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, said.<\/p>\n

\"fifa-world-cup-linc.jpg<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

Lincoln Financial Field was designed for hosting world-class events.<\/p>\n

“When we built Lincoln Financial Field, one of the things that we made a promise to the city and state is that we would bring large-scale events, worldwide events here,” Frank Gumienny, chief operating officer of the Philadelphia and chief tournament officer of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, said.<\/p>\n

The transformation includes altering the field corners for soccer corner kicks, meeting FIFA’s required dimensions and installing the pitch.<\/p>\n

\"linc-world-cup.jpg<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

“This is Kentucky bluegrass. It’s a hybrid \u2014 it’s a reinforced fiber system,” Eagles vice president of grounds Tony Leonard said. “Working with our partner Tuckahoe [Turf Farms] over in Hammonton, we’ll have a staff of 10 on just a day-to-day level working on this pitch and then when we get up leading into the tournament, we’ll have a pool of about 30.”<\/p>\n

And you can’t miss the bird’s eye view of the signage inside and outside the Linc, showing off the Philly pride with a “We are Philadelphia” centerpiece.<\/p>\n

\"we-are-philadelphia.jpg<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

“We felt that coming out of the bid that many, especially globally, didn’t have a very good understanding of Philadelphia,” Kane said. “And so really trying to embrace the ‘We are Philadelphia’ to convey our authenticity and what makes us different.”<\/p>\n

The last of the six games played on the beautiful pitch at the Linc will be a Round of 16 match on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 FIFA World Cup\u00a0is less than a month away, and Philadelphia is one of the host cities\u00a0for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8625,28,69,71,70,2236],"class_list":["post-191570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-lincoln-financial-field","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191570","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=191570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}