06/14/2026
When the U.S. men’s national team takes the pitch for its first World Cup match, its players’ feet will land on newly installed grass at SoFi Stadium in California, home to NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.
FIFA has required all 16 stadiums hosting World Cup matches to have playing surfaces that are mostly natural grass, with strict requirements to ensure ideal playing surfaces and the best competition possible.
The ingenuity and commitment have especially caught the eye of many NFL players, the athletes who most often use those fields for one of the world’s most violent sports, who are wondering why their sport won’t do the same for them when they’ve been asking to play on grass for years.
“With MetLife getting grass, obviously it’s cool for FIFA and the World Cup. It’s one of the biggest stages in the world but, at the same time, the NFL as a whole is one of the most profitable businesses in the world, and so you would think that us as players would have a say in the fields that we get to play on," New York Giants offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor said.
Read more: nbcnews.to/4vG20zB
