With the 2026 World Cup near, Nations League finals kick off a series of 2025 'tests' in U.S.

Yahoo

19-03-2025

Walk through the halls of Congress, or the streets of any bustling U.S. city, and you'll likely encounter a 2026 World Cup quirk without knowing it. That tournament, the Mundial, the most mega of mega events, is coming to North America next summer. But the people organizing it sometimes get dispiriting, semi-alarming reactions when they mention the World Cup to random Americans or acquaintances.
Some will ask: Where is it?
Or: When? Or even: When's the bid?
Whereas most World Cups have inundated and energized their hosts, Americans — with endless options for entertainment, and daily concerns about their democracy or livelihoods, and a relative indifference toward soccer — 'don't seem to have an accurate understanding' of the celebration that's coming to their shores, as one person close to the planning effort said.
And that, throughout 2025, with a steady stream of smaller soccer events, is one thing the hosts hope to change.
Nine of the 11 U.S. stadiums slated to stage the 2026 World Cup will also serve as hosts for regional tournaments or the Club World Cup this spring and summer. Officials in those cities see the 2025 competitions as both 'tests' of their readiness and 'opportunities.' They know they need to inject their respective regions with the type of awareness and excitement that would come more naturally in other countries. In Philadelphia, for example, the Club World Cup is an 'opportunity to drive interest and enthusiasm and momentum toward '26,' Meg Kane, the CEO of Philly's World Cup host committee, told Yahoo Sports.
And, it's more than that.
'We're lucky, to some extent, because the Club World Cup gives us an opportunity to think about how we might want to do things, and … to see where we can improve things,' Kane said. She mentioned assessing security plans and the 'resiliency' of Philadelphia's public transportation system, under the stress of an influx of international soccer fans. Other host committee heads see an opportunity to disprove concerns that the U.S. is, in fact, not ready for the millions of visitors.
They all know, of course, that the 2026 World Cup will be a different beast. Although FIFA has been telling local organizers and U.S. government officials that the Club World Cup will be 'as big as the last [men's] World Cup,' according to multiple people who've heard FIFA's pitch, they know that the 2026 tournament will require resources and processes unlike any they've ever put in place.
Still, though, they're approaching 2025 as a series of dress rehearsals — beginning with the CONCACAF Nations League finals at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, this week.
SoFi will host that showdown of the top four men's national teams in North and Central America. It will then host CONCACAF Gold Cup games in June, with an April friendly pitting the U.S. women's national team vs. Brazil sandwiched in between.
'So,' said Adolfo Romero, SoFi Stadium's VP of events, 'we have [three] opportunities to test out everything we want to do in preparation for the World Cup.'
Most of the 11 venues, although primarily NFL stadiums, have extensive experience with elite soccer. Together, they've also hosted nine Super Bowls, seven College Football Playoff title games and a few dozen nights of Taylor Swift.
But none has ever hosted anything akin to what's coming in 2026. Key differences include the global nature of the World Cup and its cadence. Each stadium will stage six-plus games over a span of multiple weeks. Each city will also put on fan festivals. FIFA expects activations on matchdays and non-matchdays alike.
This, specifically, is why executives at SoFi and its surrounding campus, Hollywood Park, saw the Nations League finals as an opportunity. They begin with two semifinals — U.S. vs. Panama, Mexico vs. Canada — on Thursday. They conclude with Sunday's third-place match and final, with two off days in between.
The schedule, Romero said, is the "same style to a World Cup'; so he and colleagues saw it as a chance for something of a dry run. They'll host a concert at Hollywood Park's theatre on Friday, a 'community day' Saturday, and a 'fan zone' with food trucks and other activities throughout the event.
'The hope,' Romero explained to Yahoo Sports, is that 'seeing these games come to life, and seeing the natural movement of people throughout our venues, and what spaces work, what spaces don't work,' will allow them and L.A.'s World Cup host committee to optimize those spaces next summer.
Inside the stadium, engineers and agronomists will also evaluate a recently installed, highly specialized 'hybrid' grass field, which will serve as 'the model for the FIFA 2026 World Cup pitch,' as Otto Benedict, SoFi's SVP of facilities, told Yahoo Sports.
And in locker rooms, national team coaches will evaluate their players — who are vying for a trophy but also jockeying for World Cup roster spots.
But the utility of these games as preliminary exams extends well beyond the white lines — and well beyond Los Angeles.
Organizers acknowledge that the Nations League and Club World Cup are bit-size samples. The 'big World Cup,' as one host committee leader dubbed it, will attract far more fans from a wider variety of nations. It will bring dignitaries and perhaps President Donald Trump. It will demand more buses, more signage, more brainpower and more policing.
Security checkpoints and perimeters, for example, will be set much farther outside stadiums than American fans are used to. The Nations League perimeter, by comparison, will be 'totally different than what you would see for a World Cup,' Romero confirmed.
The various competitions also differ organizationally. The Nations League and Gold Cup are run by CONCACAF, the governing body of soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean. The Club World Cup is run by FIFA, the global governing body, in partnership with the owners and operators of each respective stadium. The 'big World Cup,' on the other hand, is a city-wide affair. The stadiums and local governments have signed a series of contracts with FIFA. Each of the 11 localities has formed a 'host committee' to fulfill its obligations — and to fundraise to cover associated costs.
Those host committees aren't technically involved in the Club World Cup. They see it, though, as 'a milestone moment to create a lot of energy,' as Miami host committee CEO Alina Hudak told Yahoo Sports. 'And we all know fundraising is tied to that.'
They will 'utilize' it, as another host committee member said, 'not just to test our transportation and security methods, but also' to drum up interest among potential corporate sponsors.
'Nothing is on the scale and scope of the World Cup,' that host committee member clarified. But there will nonetheless be keen, hands-on observers in Miami and Philly, in Northern California and North Jersey, in Seattle and Atlanta, in Houston and Dallas and, beginning this week, in L.A.
'This,' Romero said of the Nations League finals, 'is a preview.'