Why MetLife Stadium Was The Worst Possible Choice to Host the 2026 World Cup Final | OneFootball

The 2026 FIFA World Cup was a rousing success, but it wasn’t perfect. One standout hiccup was the final venue: New York/New Jersey Stadium, aka MetLife, which simply wasn’t up to the standards of the world’s biggest sporting match. 

We’ve only just managed to catch our breath after a spine-tingling 2026 FIFA World Cup, and yet, the focus is already shifting towards the 2030 edition.

Like 2026, there will be three official host nations in Morocco, Spain, and Portugal, but to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the tournament, the first three matches will take place in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina — making this the first World Cup to feature across six countries and three continents.

But four years out from the competition, there is plenty still up in the air. It’s uncertain how many teams will participate, and the final venue is still yet to be determined.

While Spain is confident of securing the rights to the final after the Santiago Bernabéu’s €1.35 billion renovation, don’t count Morocco out. The Hassan II Stadium is currently under construction just outside of Casablanca, and with a planned capacity of 115,000, it would be the biggest football stadium in the world upon completion.

But regardless of who ends up winning the bid, one thing is for sure: it won’t be as bad as MetLife Stadium.

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

My first experience at MetLife covering a FIFA event was for the 2025 Club World Cup, when I drove up from Maryland to New Jersey and made my way to a Super 8 motel that had precisely one benefit: it was a one-mile walk away from MetLife.

Having grown accustomed to European stadiums like Camp Nou, Estádio da Luz, Parc de Princes, Estadio Metropolitano, and the Bernabéu, I thought that it was going to be a breeze walking to the stadium. I was in for a rude awakening.

As I entered the lobby, I was greeted by a poster that was accompanied by the New Jersey State Police badge and a no pedestrian sign. “Hotel Guests attending events at MetLife Stadium cannot walk back to the hotel from the stadium. It is illegal and dangerous to walk on the roadways surrounding the stadium. Please make the proper transportation arrangements.”

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

Unlike every other host stadium at the 2026 World Cup, MetLife doesn’t welcome foot traffic. Isolated in the New Jersey Meadowlands, ringed by multi-lane, limited-access highways without continuous sidewalk connections or crosswalks, state lawmakers have ensured that it is only possible to walk to the stadium from the final mile after arriving by other forms of transportation, like from the American Dream Mall parking lot or the geofenced rideshare drop-off zone.

Unlike other host venues in Kansas City and Dallas, which took great strides to ensure that fans could have affordable transportation to the stadium, New York/New Jersey did the opposite. Fans attending matches at MetLife Stadium could either pay $98 for a train ride (originally $150) from Penn Station to Secaucus Junction to Meadowlands Station, or pay $80 for a bus ride from Port Authority or NJ Park-and-Ride, or pay $225-300 for a parking pass. They could also stump for a taxi or rideshare and then walk one mile from the racetrack to the stadium gate.

This, naturally, created some of the worst traffic bottlenecks on the Eastern Seaboard, making what should be an otherwise manageable experience into a logistical nightmare. It is cruelly ironic that, for a metropolitan region that boasts the best public transportation network in the country, MetLife Stadium proved to be the least accessible to non-car traffic.

As I began to visit other stadiums during my Club World Cup adventure, I began to realize that MetLife lagged behind the rest in just about every single facet. The press box was fully indoors, with windows closed so as to block out journalists from hearing any of the action and energy from the stadium.

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

But while MetLife Stadium does a great job of insulating journalists from the outside elements, the same cannot be said about the fans. When it launched in 2010 at the cost of $1.6 billion, making it the most expensive stadium built in the U.S. at the time of its completion, it did so without a roof. Fans who go to MetLife Stadium are unprotected from sweltering heat, rain, hail, wind, thunder, and all kinds of other extreme weather.

“[MetLife is] too commercialized,” said London-based journalist Ryan Taylor, who covered the 2026 World Cup for The Mirror. “Having a big capacity doesn’t make any stadium a good one. The way it’s positioned means fans are actually heavily exposed to sunlight, the transport links are poor…I’m actually surprised it was deemed the best possible host for the World Cup final. That’s without getting into the pitch.”

In addition to the stands, MetLife Stadium’s playing surface also leaves more to be desired. It has come under scrutiny from various NFL players like Jaelan Phillips, Andrew Thomas, Josh Jacobs, and Malik Nabers, who have suffered long-term injuries while playing at MetLife.

Aaron Rodgers had missed just 22 games in 19 seasons due to injury when he took the field for his New York Jets debut, but he would last four snaps before tearing his Achilles tendon. This isn’t a coincidence: playing on synthetic turf increases non-contact lower-extremity injuries by 28% compared to natural grass, as well as 32% for non-contact knee injuries and 69% for ankle and foot injuries.

The synthetic turf sits on top of a rigid base, creating poor shock absorption and extra wear and tear on joints and transferring torque and biomechanical load directly into knee ligaments and the Achilles tendon rather than allowing the surface to yield.

Because FIFA requires natural grass for major international tournaments, MetLife installed temporary sod over its artificial turf, which merely results in a hard, patchy surface where the ball bobs unpredictably and moves too slowly across dry patches.

Reece James was one of the many footballers at the Club World Cup who criticized the MetLife playing surface. And despite FIFA spending several years concocting the perfect mixture of Bermuda grass and artificial turf, the final product that graced MetLife during the 2026 FIFA World Cup was simply not good enough. From Vinícius Júnior and Adrien Rabiot to Didier Deschamps and Ian Wright, a number of leading football figures criticized the field over how hard and sluggish the temporary pitch played.

After spending the bulk of my 2025 Club World Cup journey in the Meadowlands, I made a vow to myself: the only 2026 World Cup match that I would attend at MetLife would be the actual final. I remained true to that vow, covering matches in Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Houston, Kansas City, and Atlanta, before finally making my return to MetLife on the final day of my six-week expedition.

This time, getting to MetLife wasn’t a problem. All in all, I was able to get from Central Park to Penn Station on the subway for the fee of $3, before enjoying FIFA’s free media shuttle to the stadium. As a result of leaving at 8 a.m. and the massive roadblocks throughout the city, it only ended up taking 15 minutes to make it there.

It wasn’t, however, a sign of things to come. Fans, media, and volunteers were forced to stand in line for an eternity before finally making it into the stadium. Part of this was down to the final receiving a Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) 1, the federal government’s highest security level, which required layered security perimeters, strict bag and body screening, and air domain lockdowns.

However, there was also a shocking lack of stewards on site, causing severe misdirection and poor communication between staff and attendees. Media credential holders and VIPs were repeatedly directed to general public gates or redirected in circles, causing widespread queue backups. I was one of 2,000-plus journalists who waited over three hours in line, and who, just when it seemed I was going to make it to security, was forced to loop backwards.

Heaping onto the already rife confusion and delays was MetLife’s terrible stadium planning. Because the vast majority of the 80,000-plus attendees relied on public transit and rideshare drop-offs near the American Dream complex, massive waves of fans arrived simultaneously at the outer gates. Ticket and security checks were conducted both at the outer perimeter edge and at the primary stadium turnstiles, effectively doubling queue bottlenecks before fans could reach their seats.

OK, so a quick recap: MetLife had a less-than-ideal experience both inside and outside of the stadium. What about the aesthetics?

As opposed to other stadiums that possess natural beauty and that are woven into the city’s architecture, MetLife Stadium is a complete eyesore. From a bird’s eye view, it looks like a giant air conditioner unit that was dropped in the middle of a gargantuan parking lot. This comes down to sharing two tenants, the New York Giants and the Jets, with the architects unable to feature permanent team colors or iconic branding for either franchise.

Instead, they selected a facade composed of customizable horizontal aluminum louvers and interior lighting, which glows blue or green depending on who’s playing. On non-game days, it defaults to a neutral, metallic gray, resulting in an exterior that feels utilitarian and corporate rather than inspiring. Unlike other jaw-dropping venues like SoFi, MetLife lacks the architectural soul or striking silhouette that would have justified its exorbitant cost.

“As an overall venue I hate MetLife,” stated Sporting News journalist Kyle Bonn, who has been attending matches at the stadium since he was a kid. “It’s soulless. It’s in the middle of a swamp with limited entrances and exits, and the American Dream Mall only makes things more convoluted. [The biggest issue is] easily the access to and from the stadium due to the parking situation and lack of easily accessible public transit. The lack of uniqueness also feels like a pretty big miss: it just doesn’t have any character whatsoever.”

If there’s one thing MetLife Stadium has going for itself, it’s that it’s been incredibly fortunate when it comes to weather throughout the years. In 2014, when it hosted its first (and likely only) Super Bowl, it was the first open-air stadium in a “cold-weather” city to host the event. However, the temperature at kickoff was a balmy 49 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) making this only the third-coldest Super Bowl, and a major snow storm hit the area the very next day.

When I arrived in New York City on the Thursday before the final, I found myself blanketed with toxic air due to dense wildfire smoke from Canada, making it impossible to walk outside without incurring a headache and/or a dry throat. And on Saturday, heavy squalls, booming thunder, and lightning moved directly over East Rutherford, with state police issuing shelter-in-place orders and forcing staff, volunteers, and early visitors to evacuate the seating bowl and field level.

But then, on Sunday morning, just hours before kickoff, a powerful cold front swept through the area, with northwest winds blowing away the concentrated smoke plume. Instead of oppressive, 90-degree heat, kickoff temperatures sat around 80-83 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) under mostly sunny skies with manageable 40–55% humidity. Moreover, the storm front pushed completely off the coast before 3:00 p.m., allowing the final to go off without lightning suspensions or weather stoppages.

Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

Despite being the worst of the 16 venues, MetLife was selected to host the final due to profitability. FIFA realized that it would have an easier time marketing the event in New York City than a lesser-known city like Atlanta or Dallas, and with three major airports nearby, there’d be enough infrastructure to field all of these tourists. And with a capacity of 80,663 (second to the Estadio Azteca amongst the host venues), FIFA could generate a much higher ticket revenue from the event.

But ultimately, it never came close to delivering as a World Cup stadium and left both players and fans baffled with its various pitfalls. Let’s hope that, if/when the United States hosts the World Cup for a third time, it will have left relics like MetLife Stadium where it belongs: in the rearview mirror.