‘Will it be perfect? Probably not’ - If the Club Club World Cup was the dress rehearsal for soccer in America, the 2026 World Cup is the main event - and the clock’s ticking

Gianni Infantino really tried here. The FIFA president spent years planning the CWC, trying to manifest it into existence. He got Tiffany to build a very shiny, very gold trophy. He picked up on some major American sporting event touchpoints - individual introductions for players, multi-cultural half-time shows, boxing ring announcers, celebrity appearances and the presence of the United States President at the final.

As an unintentional parody of American sports, the competition worked.

But the byproduct was the revelation of the many things the country still needs to address as it looks to host the biggest World Cup ever in less than a year’s time. This, of course, is not unique to the U.S. Very few countries are purpose-built to host an event of this magnitude.

Qatar had to build a new city, seven stadiums, and dodge human rights accusations in doing so. Brazil spent two years cleansing and covering up its favelas, tearing down schools for new venues and built a stadium deep in the Amazon rainforest that still isn’t routinely used.

Problems come with the territory. The first task is identifying them. The more important task is addressing them.

The primary and most complicated issue, at least for the fans trying to attend matches, was always going to be simply getting to the stadium. Public transportation is ubiquitous across Europe and Asia, and World Cups in South America have, historically, facilitated the flow of fans efficiently.

America isn’t devoid of public transportation. The NYC subway system, for example, is effective. But the problem the CWC faced was that its venues were, for the most part, either outside of major metropolitan areas, or housed in areas that don’t have established public transportation.

Hard Rock Stadium, which hosted the opener and seven other games, was a prime example. There were widespread complaints about the physical ability to just get to the stadium, which is 15 miles from downtown Miami. There is no public transportation, and considerable congestion.

Fans generally had to use car services, private transportation or chartered buses simply to get to the ground. One fan was quoted a price of $150 to get from the stadium to their hotel via taxi - an 11-mile ride. Numerous fans told The Athletic, rather dramatically, that going to Hard Rock had put them off football matches altogether.

That, of course, is one extreme.

But even those venues which are better equipped, such as MetLife Stadium, are faced with similar issues. MetLife is not in New York - its in East Rutherford, New Jersey - and it can take more than an hour to get to the grounds from Penn Station in the heart of Manhattan. Such is the regularity of delays. NYNJ host committee co-manager Bruce Revman backed the area to cope with a major tournament.

“Will it be perfect? Probably not, but it's going to be damn good because we've been planning on this for four, five, six years,” he said last week at a global soccer summit in Newark. “And by the way, this region, especially MetLife, as we know, hosts really big events. This is not their first rodeo. So gaming it out, having the right imagination and communicating appropriately is really critical.”

The CWC reinforced that there are controllable challenges - and some uncontrollable. No. 1 on that list is the climate. Summer World Cups are going to be increasingly difficult to play, given extreme temperatures and disruptive weather events. It’s why the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was pushed back to November in a significant departure from the normal June-July timeframe.

This probably should have been recognized by FIFA. There are professors, climatologists, NGOs who have written extensively about the impact climate change can have on soccer.

But even stripping that away, there remains one fundamental fact: America gets hot during the summer. Very hot. This is not a new phenomenon. Severe weather, including thunderstorms and lightning, also delayed or suspended matches for long periods. But European teams, in particular, seemed surprised by the blistering heat.

PSG coach Luis Enrique admitted that the temperatures had an impact on his team’s 4-0 battering of Atletico Madrid in their group stage opener. Chelsea’s Enzo Maresca was left furious after his team could barely train due to temperatures that exceeded 100 degrees in Philadelphia.

“It is almost impossible to train or to make a session because of the weather. Now we are trying just to save energy for the game,” Maresca said.

Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez, who spent a good chunk of his career playing in the humidity of South America - and routinely takes part in sweltering friendlies for Argentina - remarked that he felt dizzy due to the weather.

Borussia Dortmund were ridiculed for the fact that their substitutes watched some of their game against Mamelodi Sundowns from the dressing rooms. That image becomes far more understandable when you consider it was north of 90 degrees.

There have been dissenting voices. Brazilian, Saudi and African teams all said that the weather was pretty standard for them. Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane, raised in the stifling heat of North London, admitted that it was just “part of football.”

Either way, it has started a dialogue on weather implications for the World Cup. FIFPro, the worldwide footballer’s union, said that a handful of CWC games should have been canceled due to unsafe weather conditions. Nine of next year’s 16 host cities often reach average summer temperatures that can cause “high risk” of heat-related injuries.

FIFPro director of Global Policy Alexander Bielefeld summed it up:

"What we have seen in the Club World Cup has to be a wake-up call for FIFA,” he said. “It’s clear that certain areas in the USA, especially in Florida, where there is a higher risk and a need to avoid midday kickoffs - so games scheduled in these cities should be moved to a later time. The health and safety of players must take priority over commercial interests, including the broadcasters."

Infantino admitted that “the health of players is important.” He insisted that mandatory cooling breaks made a difference. But FIFA will face a real decision here. Some have suggested that early morning kickoffs could be a solution. Afternoon start times, in many cities, seem unreasonable.

"Every criticism we receive is a source for us to study and analyze what we can do better," Infantino said at a news conference in New York. "Of course, the heat is an issue. Last year, at the Olympic Games in Paris, games during the day, in all sports, took place in very hot conditions. Cooling breaks are very important, and we will see what we can do, but we have stadiums with roofs, and we will definitely use these stadiums during the day next year."

There are, indeed, some stadiums with roofs. But only four of the 16 earmarked for 2026 have coverage - Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, AT&T Stadium in Dallas, NRG Stadium in Texas, and BC Place in Vancouver.

Pitches were always going to be a point of controversy. They have been a point of contention in MLS for years. In some cases, the problem was that real grass pitches would simply bake in the summer sun. In others, grass laid on top of turf created a litany of issues. Turf fields can be dangerous for top level football. Something had to be done.

The result was a troubling inconsistency in playing surfaces, and footballers forced to adjust to imperfect conditions. Real Madrid’sJude Bellingham said that the ball bounced unpredictably, and that it took some adjusting to figure out how to play on a new surface.

Palmeiras starlet Estevao said that the MetLife turf was far too dry in the first half of his team’s match with Porto, then overwatered in the second - remember, he played his football in the streets of Brazil growing up. Dortmund’s Niklas Sule was more blunt, describing the field as “pretty terrible.”

Luis Enrique made perhaps the perfect analogy for American viewers: “I can't imagine an NBA game played on a court full of holes."

Of course, venues and World Cup host committees have long sought to ensure the quality of the fields. Atlanta’s host committee has been growing grass off site for more than a year, which will then be properly laid into Mercedes-Benz Arena. MetLife Stadium did something similar. It is a top-of-mind issue for committee hosts - who have urged patience in getting everything sorted.

“Anyone who's ever done even a small renovation in their home knows how projects can go - and certainly in this economic climate, and that's been a challenge and needed the longest runway,” Sharon Bollencach, executive director of Toronto’s host committee, told GOAL.

The CWC made one thing clear: the renovation might not be so small.

Well ahead of the Club World Cup, in December 2024, ticket prices were $350 to attend the CWC opener, with Inter Miami playing Al-Ahly. That was shortly after the draw. Fast-forward to June, the week before the opening whistle, and you could get a ticket at the same game for just $55.

Such are the vagaries of dynamic pricing, a system in which ticket prices are typically set very high, and then change based on demand, day-by-day, sometimes minute-by-minute. The idea is basically to max out profit. But that approach assumes that people are willing to pay.

The reality for the Club World Cup was mixed. There is a slew of data about ticket pricing from this summer. The eye test showed a lot of empty seats in person, and cleverly executed camera angles on national broadcasts to minimize the apparent emptiness of the stands. Some games did quite well. Real Madrid, for example, sold 95 percent of their tickets, for example. The PSG-Chelsea final at MetLife sold out.

But in other cases, the situation was dire, with price drops and empty seats dominating narratives. Some fans spent into the hundreds for individual seats, only to find out that they could have saved loads had they waited just 24 hours. The day of the quarterfinal between Fluminense and Al Hilal, you could buy a ticket for $11 - which is, objectively, a little bit too cheap.

Pricing had nothing to do with stadiums or vendors. Ticketmaster told GOAL that they had no influence on how much fans had to pay - it was all overseen by FIFA. Individual anecdotes painted a picture of fans feeling fortunate to not have broken the bank. One fan paid a “not bad” $240 to see the final.

There have been calls, in some corners, for FIFA to play the tournament in smaller stadiums. The counter was that they would rather take the empty seats on the assumption that there would still be enough attendees to maximize profit. The reality is probably somewhere in between.

Either way, there remains the fact that the tournament was priced too high, too early, and priced some consumers out of the market.

The solution might be, then, to set prices lower next year. But with a $13 billion revenue projection for the 2026 World Cup, that might not be particularly realistic.

One good thing FIFA can take from all of this, though, is that there is clearly a massive cultural appetite for soccer in the United States. More than anything, that has been Infantino’s mission. He has pushed the very vision of soccer like no one else, especially in fertile markets.

And it worked - although not necessarily in the way expected. FIFA spent more than $50M marketing the CWC. A considerable portion of that went towards influencers - while other companies also cashed in. Soccer, in America, is a game for the young and the online. Infantino gets that.

But the real verve and vigor for the CWC has come from those from afar. South American fans have taken plaudits for their noise, enthusiasm and exquisite food they displayed throughout the tournament. Beyond that, supporters from around the world gave the CWC the vibe of a truly global event - even in the sanitized NFL stadiums it was often played in.

And with the projected influx of 6.5 million fans into North America for the 2026 event, that energy will be amplified.

Unlike the Club World Cup - which, by definition, catered to supporters of specific teams, many of which were relative unknowns in the U.S. - the World Cup will resonate with fans of national teams. Entire countries get behind World Cup participants - England, France, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, even the USMNT - as opposed to Salzburg and Auckland City.

Ultimately, that is what might count next year. This is an ecosystem. Soccer needs fans to exist. Those who arbitrate and organize soccer need to cater to the fans in order to create a good experience. Everyone, ultimately, just wants a good product.

That is all a World Cup is: the best teams, best competitions, wrapped up, sold and broadcast and streamed to trillions of people. And if there’s one thing that can be definitively derived from this summer, it’s that the consumers will be there.

Will everything else fall into place? Host committees are hard at work. Kansas City doesn’t have a great public transportation system, so it has booked buses by the thousands. Atlanta had the wrong floodlights in its stadium, so it installed a new system. Hotels, Air BnBs, base camps, facilities: these things are all under consideration from teams and committees alike. And sure, the trains will have to run more often.

The rest is on FIFA. Kickoff times can be changed. Roofs can be opened or closed. Prices can be set more fairly. Players can be better looked after - or at least listened to. There are solutions, but it will require all parties - especially soccer’s governing body - to act. The clock is ticking.