Copa America 2024 was supposed to show the soccer world that the United States can successfully host major tournaments. The competition, which is typically held in South America, was played throughout the States in June and July. Many essentially saw Copa America as basically a dry run for the 2026 World Cup.
While there were lofty expectations, this summer’s tournament was a borderline disaster. High ticket prices forced several group-stage matches to happen in front of half-empty stadiums. Problems with pitches in multiple arenas caused backlash from a plethora of players and coaches. Perhaps most importantly, security issues marred the latter stages of the competition.
Despite all of these problems, there will be some notable changes ahead of the 2026 World Cup. While Copa America 2024 was in the United States, CONMEBOL took charge of the competition’s organization. The South American soccer federation was in charge of the event, including security and crowd control procedures. FIFA, however, will take charge of the World Cup in two years.
FIFA gets a head start on potential pitch problems
The world’s governing body of the sport will almost certainly take more of an initiative to make the World Cup run smoothly. South American soccer expert, Tim Vickery, claimed that changes will happen ahead of the tournament.
“You can guarantee with FIFA coming to town for the World Cup that the level of organization will be better than [Copa America],” Vickery told talkSPORT. “I think a few lessons will be learned too, but thinking ahead to the World Cup in two years’ time, the crowd control and event organization is not the only possible problem that we’re going to have. There are two other problems.”
“The pitches which were a disaster [at Copa America 2024] in two senses. Firstly, most of these stadiums are American football stadiums, so what they did was put grass on top of artificial turf. They laid this grass two or three days before. There were panels.”
“These American football pitches are too small. They’re five meters shorter and four meters narrower than what you normally get. This obviously has an effect on the quality of the spectacle.”
While these points are certainly true, FIFA will be taking over the World Cup host stadiums a month before the competition starts. This will give organizers more time to make necessary alterations to the fields. Not only is the governing body laying down natural turf well ahead of time, but they are also removing stadium seats to make the pitches fit to FIFA standards.
Excessive heat could lead to problems at the 2026 World Cup
Nevertheless, one particular problem that FIFA or anyone else can truly control is the weather. A large portion of the United States is experiencing a heat wave and it certainly affected Copa America 2024.
“Another [issue] is the heat,” Vickery continued. “And it’s a huge problem. We had it in one of the Copa America games before halftime, a linesman from Guatemala collapsed because of the heat. And the games for the World Cup will be earlier than the ones we saw for Copa America to reach the TV audience in Europe. Some of the stadiums are air-conditioned. Others aren’t. Even when the stadiums are air-conditioned, the training grounds aren’t.”
10 of the 16 host North American cities for the 2026 World Cup are further south than Kansas City. High temperatures in the Missouri city somewhat regularly exceed 90 degrees at times during the peak summer months. Other areas such as Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, and Houston will also likely be even hotter as well.
Predicting the weather, especially two years out, is impossible. FIFA, however, will be hoping that the region does not experience a similar heat wave in 2026. If so, organizers will have to find ways to help keep players, coaches, and fans cool during the competition.
PHOTOS: IMAGO.
