I went to the FIFA Club World Cup. Here's what could go wrong at 2026 World Cup.

USA Today

4 days ago

While safety is obviously the most pressing need, if FIFA is using this as a dry run for next year's World Cup, goodness, I wish they would learn how to actually stage a match.
So far, the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup had been such an obvious embarrassment.
A random assortment of clubs played, ranging from the second-biggest club in Auckland, New Zealand to Paris Saint-Germain, arguably the best club in world right now – and various 'who dey's in between. It seemed that the tournament was assembled as a vanity project for FIFA president Gianna Infantino.
So when I showed my 12-year old, soccer-obsessed son an article reporting that ticket prices for the semifinal had plummeted from almost $500 to $13, my point was: "Look how ridiculous this is."
His reaction was: "Can we go!?"
Not having anticipated this response, I had no clever reply and found myself buying three tickets. To my shock and delight, $13 included all Ticketmaster fees.
My son immediately bragged to his friends he was going to the Chelsea-Fluminense match, leading his best friend's mom to buy two tickets for the same.
When she couldn't get the time off, she was all too happy to eat the $13, because the semifinal between Chelsea, the English giant, and Fluminense, the sixth-best club in Brazil, was being held at 3 p.m. in early July in the Meadowlands. The heat index was 98.
FIFA is using this tournament as a dry run for next year's World Cup. If this is how they run it, next year's World Cup is going to be an unmitigated disaster.
What went wrong at the Club World Cup?
I got an email from FIFA telling me to arrive three hours early for a 3 p.m. game. Why? To mitigate traffic? To tailgate?
Camp and work schedules meant the earliest we could pull into the Secaucus train station was 1:30. The train from there got us to MetLife at 1:50.
We were met with the most intricate and ridiculous series of pedestrian fences I have ever encountered. I lived in New York City during 9/11 and no barricades impeded my progress this much.
When I went to the Notre Dame-Navy game this past October, entrance to MetLife Stadium was free and easy, and the walk from the train to the gates was no more than five minutes.
It took more than 15 minutes to walk through the boiling parking lot, to the FIFA 'fun zone." And now I started to wonder if this was the reason we were to arrive early. Did Infantino, the FIFA boss, want us to spend three hours and all the money that the $13 ducat saved us?
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The 'fun zone' was a Michelob Ultra porta-bar open to those 21 and over, the Chinese manufacturer Hisense showing off a 113-inch TV that probably costs four grand given the tariffs that may or may not be in effect right now, and a tent for the Saudi Public Investment Fund. We hustled past, eager to find some shade.
Thankfully, our $13 nosebleeds were high enough up so that our seats were under the accidentally shade-providing ring of lighting at the top of MetLife. The ring of lighting that should've been providing light rather than shade, because this match should've been happening at 7 p.m., instead of in the middle of the day in a heat wave that anyone with a nodding familiarity of the New York Metro area could've predicted for July 8.
Here's what was bizarre at the Club World Cup
At least getting there that early meant we got to experience the pregame grandeur of the FIFA Club World Cup. This included:
Only 60% of the stadium, max, was there to see this display.
As the father-son duo who sat down next to us at the 10-minute mark said, they had been waiting in a line for more than a half-hour. All those pedestrian fences served some purpose!
The last arrivals in our section took their seats at 30 minutes into the game. This is, for the uninitiated, 33% of the way through the match. Not that the fans really seemed to notice. Because, as I have mentioned, it was 98 degrees.
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The players got 'Powerade Hydration Breaks,' because everything must be sponsored. The ticket-buying public had to pay for $5 Aquafinas that were not cold, or $3 'budget waters' that I did not explore. I will say that the concession worker near section 347 was all-too happy to give out free water when the 10-year old in front of me in line fainted into his father's arms from heat exhaustion during halftime and needed medical care.
Is the FIFA Club World Cup a dry run for the World Cup?
While safety is obviously the most pressing need, if FIFA is using this as a dry-run for next year's World Cup, goodness, I wish they would learn how to actually stage a match.
There was almost no soccer commentary during the first half – a boisterous announcement when João Pedro scored for Chelsea, but no information about any fouls, or shots on goal, or anything.
Most unforgivably, there was no running clock anywhere in the stadium. The closest MetLife came was the four jumbotrons in each corner running, for some reason, the TV coverage of the match. So if you wanted the game time, you had to read the tiny TV graphic from 200 yards.
And if the ball went out of play, the coverage changed over to crowd shots, without the time. While this is how I saw my buddy, Wally, in the Chelsea section, it also is the equivalent of attending a baseball game without the innings, or balls and strikes posted. It is the basic requirement of hosting a soccer match, between having two goals at opposite ends of the pitch.
How many people noticed this? Hard to say. Aside from the attention-sapping heat, the attendance posted on the stadium boards was 70,776. I assume that was paid attendance. The entire mezzanine level of the stadium was vacant. This, again, though, raises the question of why the entrance was so bottlenecked. The entrance to the Notre Dame game I saw in October was flawless, and that was sold out, not at 86% attendance. I can only imagine the hold-up was because of the extra nonsense that FIFA threw into the mix.
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So, between FIFA's crowd mismanagement, the disastrous idea to have this match at 3 p.m. instead of the universally agreed upon summer evening start time of 7 p.m. for virtually every event in the New York area, the weird bombastic pregame and the omnipresence of the Saudi Wealth Fund, I feel safe in stating that my 12-year-old soccer-obsessed son enjoyed the match – but certainly less than any of the Red Bull or Gotham FC matches he's been to in the soccer-dedicated Sports Illustrated Arena in Newark.
My wife, for her part, ranked her level of regret at attending at a 7 of 10. Had there been no shade in our nosebleeds, I am fairly certain she would've gone to the American Dream Mall, deadly heat being the only thing she hates more than malls.
I came away from the Club World Cup semifinal thinking there was no way that next year's proper World Cup would be anything less than a gaudy disaster.
Jeremiah Conway lives in Nyack, New York. This column originally appeared on northjersey.com.
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