2026 FIFA World Cup: A Festival Across Three Nations

The World Cup has never looked or felt like this.

Forty‑eight teams. Three host nations. Eleven cities across a continent braced for a month where daily life bends around kickoff times. From Mexico City’s thin air to the lakefront chill of Toronto and the sprawl of Los Angeles, the biggest World Cup in history opens with a three‑day, three‑country curtain‑raiser that feels less like a tournament launch and more like a rolling global festival.

Three hosts, three opening nights

The first act belongs, fittingly, to Estadio Azteca.

On Thursday, the old cathedral of Mexican football stages the opening ceremony before Mexico face South Africa in the first Group A match. Shakira and Burna Boy will perform “Dai Dai,” the official song of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with a supporting cast that reads like a Latin American playlist on shuffle: Alejandro Fernández, Belinda, Danny Ocean, J Balvin, Lila Downs, Los Ángeles Azules, Maná and Tyla among those on the bill.

The show starts at 11:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. ET). Ninety minutes later, the football takes over.

The fixture has a ghost trailing behind it. June 11, Mexico vs. South Africa, a World Cup opener. It happened once already in 2010 in Johannesburg, a 1-1 draw that launched that tournament to the sound of vuvuzelas. This time, the roles flip. Mexico walk out in their own capital, at their own Azteca, with the expectation that comes with home advantage and a stadium that has seen Pelé and Diego Maradona crowned.

Later on Thursday, the focus swings west. South Korea meet Czechia at Akron Stadium in Zapopan, near Guadalajara, at 9 p.m. local time (11 p.m. ET), the second Group A fixture and an early test of how teams handle travel and time zones in a World Cup spread across a continent.

Friday, the spotlight splits.

In Toronto, BMO Field debuts its World Cup makeover. The stadium has swelled from 28,000 to 45,000 seats, a steel-and-concrete statement that Canada is no longer just a hockey nation dabbling in football. Ninety minutes before Canada kick off against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first Group B match at 3 p.m. ET, the Great White North rolls out its own star‑studded ceremony with Alanis Morissette, Alessia Cara, Jessie Reyez, Michael Bublé and others.

It will be Canada’s first World Cup match on home soil. For a generation raised on late‑night viewing of distant tournaments, that sentence alone changes everything.

Farther south, Los Angeles prepares to flex its show-business muscle.

At SoFi Stadium, the United States launch their campaign against Paraguay on Friday at 6 p.m. local time (9 p.m. ET), preceded by an opening ceremony that doubles as a pop summit. Katy Perry, Future, Anitta, LISA, Rema and Tyla headline the U.S. show at 4:30 p.m. local time (7:30 p.m. ET), a lineup designed to mirror the country’s fractured, vibrant cultural map.

“The lineup of artists reflects the cultural diversity of the United States and the vibrancy of its many diasporas, highlighting the nation's rich influence on music, entertainment and pop culture, while showcasing the power of music to bring people together across the country,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said.

On the pitch, the U.S. Men’s National Team reappear at a home World Cup for the first time since July 4, 1994, when Brazil ended their run 1-0 in the Round of 16. They do it in new Nike kits that nod to the past, including the stripes that became iconic 32 years ago.

A bigger World Cup, a bigger security machine

A supersized World Cup demands a supersized security operation, and the United States has moved early.

The FBI has deployed tactical teams to Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. FBI Director Kash Patel described them as crisis response experts brought in to “help support the massive security work involved in protecting players, fans, and visitors.”

For fans, that means World Cup logistics start long before the first whistle. Spectators heading to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, have been warned they may need to arrive more than an hour early to clear security, according to CBS Boston.

Marlo Graham, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, told CBS Atlanta that the planning mirrors other major events, with one crucial difference: duration. This tournament stretches across 39 days.

“Our tactical teams have been practicing commingled with other tactical teams from other agencies for months leading up to this,” Graham said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will also be part of the security footprint. White House border czar Tom Homan told CBS News that ICE’s “primary focus” during the World Cup will be national security, not immigration enforcement.

The tournament arrives on the back of a more-than-yearlong push by the Trump administration to tighten entry into the U.S., a backdrop that has already left a mark. Over the weekend, Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, slated to officiate at the World Cup, was barred from entering the country due to “vetting concerns,” Customs and Border Protection said. FIFA confirmed he had been denied entry but did not disclose details.

What fans can carry into stadiums

The World Cup is a festival, but it is also a controlled environment.

FIFA’s stadium code of conduct bans nontransparent bags and hazardous items such as weapons, body protection gear, helmets, umbrellas, strollers and chairs. The initial rules went further, blocking “bottles, cups, jars, cans or any other form of closed or capped receptacle that may be thrown or cause injury,” as well as branded water bottles.

In a tournament played in the middle of summer, that landed badly.

“What next? Suncream banned and fans forced to buy it in stadiums?” the Free Lions, a group of English supporters, wrote on X. “Naturally, the immediate thought from supporters is this is just the latest money-grab.”

The backlash hit its mark. FIFA World Cup 2026 Chief Operating Officer Heimo Schirgi later clarified on social media that each spectator in U.S. and Canadian stadiums will be allowed one soft, plastic, disposable, factory‑sealed water bottle up to 20 ounces. Hard reusable bottles remain prohibited.

Inside the venues, beverages — water, sodas and juices — will be supplied exclusively by long-time FIFA sponsor Coca‑Cola, The Associated Press reported.

The price of being there

For all the talk of access and expansion, there is a blunt reality: not everyone can afford to walk through the turnstiles.

With matches spread across 16 stadiums, more people than ever have a World Cup within traveling distance. Many are finding the tickets out of reach. Prices for group-stage games have surged into the hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

“It’s an absolutely punishing number with regards to the ticket prices to get into a game,” said Phil Labas, captain of the Chicago chapter of the American Outlaws, a U.S. supporters’ group with around 30,000 members.

Labas, who told CBS News he has attended nearly every U.S. Soccer event over the last four years, said this home World Cup has pushed even diehards to the margins of the stadium.

“We’re in the 300 section. We are upper deck in a corner ... It’s an absolute travesty,” he said.

The distance will not quiet them.

“You’ll hear us, you’ll see us if they pan up, but we will absolutely be there,” Labas promised.

Who might own this World Cup?

On the pitch, the expanded format and a North American setting have not dulled the old obsession: who wins it.

With the 2026 World Cup expected to become one of the biggest betting events in history, gamblers are already hunting for value beyond the usual heavyweights. German economist Joachim Klement, who has correctly called the past three World Cup winners, has gone against the grain again.

His pick: the Netherlands.

He places them above bookmakers’ favorites such as France, Spain, England and Brazil, pointing to a pattern of consistent overperformance. The Dutch have reached the World Cup final three times — 1974, 1978 and 2010 — without ever lifting the trophy.

“I think they have a team that doesn’t have real stars, like [Lionel] Messi for Argentina, but they are a team that is very, very leveled in the performance of every one of the players in the team. So there’s no real weak spot,” Klement told CBS News’ Ramy Inocencio.

“The second thing is they have a really good defense, and in soccer more so than in most other sports, is the saying that offense wins matches, defense wins tournaments.”

For the United States, his forecast cuts both ways.

Drawn in Group D with Paraguay, Australia and Turkey, the U.S. find themselves in a section that gives them a genuine shot at progressing and perhaps riding momentum into at least the quarterfinals. On paper, they are evenly matched with their rivals.

The larger issue, Klement argues, lies beyond tactics and talent.

“The U.S. has so many sports that compete for the talent pool that it isn’t really the dominating, most important sport in the U.S.,” he said. “While if you go anywhere in Europe or Latin America, it’s soccer and then there’s the rest.”

Over the next 39 days, that hierarchy will be tested in real time, in full stadiums from Mexico City to Toronto to Los Angeles. The world is coming. The question now is who will own this World Cup, and which nation will be left wondering how close they came on home soil.