2026 FIFA World Cup: A look inside Los Angeles Stadium ahead of the tournament
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (KESQ) – News Channel 3's Kendall Flynn took a trip to the newly named Los Angeles Stadium in Inglewood to bring a first look inside the stadium ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
Los Angeles Stadium will host eight World Cup matches, including two for the United States. The first USMNT match it will host is Friday, June 12 against Paraguay.
It takes months to prepare a venue of this magnitude for the public and athletes, and years to plan the process. From brand new signs, to changing the stadium name and turning a football field into a soccer field, it's not a light task for crews to take on.
“We're all, the FIFA staff here, we're super excited to be part of the delivering the match in this special venue," Lorenzo Fofi the FIFA match coordinator said.
Many of the preparations were cosmetic changes to the stadium, including FIFA World Cup sings or changing the locker rooms to accommodate the United States men's national team and other international teams.
While this wasn't a challenge, making sure the pitch was perfect for play was a different story.
“The challenge for FIFA is playing on natural turf," Justin Lang, FIFA pitch manager said. "This is called carpet Hybrid...This is grown in Washington state. What a hybrid does is just stabilizes everything. So, when in the heat of the moment when the players are twisting and turning, it doesn't dig off or become unstable. It just keeps everything solid.”
It's a hybrid grass and sand product three to four years in the making, not including the raised irrigation system it requires.
“All this you're seeing now, you're standing on, it's about three feet above the actual floor of the normal playing season," Lang said. "So, it's an unbelievable engineering feat.”
When making the hybrid pitch, they had to consider the match environment. Los Angeles Stadium is an open air venue, but it doesn't get direct sunlight to the turf.
“We've got artificial lighting in here," Lang said. "So, just to supplement any deficiencies that we don't get from natural light. We've got a machine box to blow air into that as well. So, if we need to take more moisture, we can turn the ventilation system on under the pitch and pull out the moisture.”
It's a heavily thought out pitch process, that naturally creates safety and durability for the athletes.
“So when you grow it on a turf farm for 12 months, roll it up, bring it in on a truck, roll it down again, it can be shaken [and] become a little bit unstable," Lang said. "The hybrid stabilizes that…and there'd be absolutely no safety concerns at all.”
Every last detail is considered and carried out to prepared L.A. for the World Cup.
“For me, the best moment, of these kinds of projects is whenever those two teams are going to the pitch, and we hear the national anthems playing," Tomasz Swierczewski, FIFA venue operations director said. "I hope the same positive emotions will going to be, applied to the whole venue over here, 74,000 people screaming, USA!”
The USMNT will face Paraguay June 12 at Los Angeles Stadium at 6 p.m. PST. Stay with News Channel 3 for continuing coverage of the World Cup throughout the tournament.
