The world’s premier soccer players will grace the pitch at MetLife Stadium over the next few weeks at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. And the two best teams will battle there for eternal glory come July.
The best way to showcase their talents is with a pristine field. For some venues, such as MetLife, that requires an entire facelift — adding a grass surface on top of artificial turf to comply with regulations established by FIFA, soccer’s governing body.
“Soccer is for everyone, whether you’re the kid that went to an Ivy League school or you’re the person that grew up with nothing,” CBS Sports Golazo analyst Michael Lahoud said. “And part of making a beautiful spectacle is you have to have the right field. Because a good surface showcases good players.”
FIFA has worked behind the scenes to ensure the playing surfaces are sustainable throughout the six-week tournament hosted across North America — which Lahoud believes is the bare minimum. Dr. Trey Rogers, a Michigan State University professor who helped develop the World Cup pitches, joked that if nobody writes about the field conditions, he’s done his job.
Over the past six years, FIFA has partnered with researchers at the University of Tennessee and Michigan State to develop grass fields for eight World Cup stadiums that regularly use turf, including MetLife. The new pitch was installed at MetLife on May 7, in time for the venue’s first of eight World Cup matches on June 13 between Brazil and Morocco.
Before the grass sees its first action, The Post talked to those involved with the project and numerous soccer experts about the process behind creating MetLife’s pitch.
“When it comes to delivering a field for the World Cup, to have those numbers, have all that thought process, it’s been very beneficial, and I couldn’t do my job without any of that information,” David Graham, FIFA’s senior pitch manager, told The Post about its work with MSU and UT.
The process for creating that field started a decade ago. Graham said FIFA’s conversations about the 2026 tournament began in 2016. Tennessee was tabbed to help in 2018, and Michigan State joined in 2020. They were chosen because of the work Rogers and Tennessee’s Dr. John Sorochan put in on the Pontiac Silverdome’s field for the 1994 World Cup.
So, Rogers, Sorochan and Co. began research to create one uniform field across the venues with turf, such as MetLife.
They first needed to decide what to do with MetLife’s turf, Rogers said. Do you take it out? Put something over it besides sod?
They chose to lay a mat called permavoid on top of asphalt for easier water drainage, per Rogers, and stitched synthetic fibers into the grass’ underbelly to reinforce its roots, American soccer analyst Devon Kerr added.
FIFA tested the prototype using the foot lower extremities (fLEX) machine, which simulates how the field reacts to a player’s foot strike. Sorochan said that helped ensure the surface’s safety.
“Not only can we test the playability of a natural surface, (we) can also start to measure the loads being felt by the athlete as they hit that surface,” Sorochan said.
Michigan State, Tennessee and FIFA also collaborated at four Pitch Management Field Days across the past two years. There, Rogers said they held seminars to provide research updates, pitch ideas and set future plans. The first meeting in May 2024 saw over 250 people, including turf specialists and FIFA representatives, gather at Tennessee.
The research helped them choose two different types of grass for the fields — a Kentucky bluegrass and ryegrass mix for the 11 stadiums in cool environments and hybrid bermudagrass for the five in warm seasons — MetLife, Hard Rock Stadium (Miami, Florida), Levi’s Stadium (Santa Clara, California), Estadio BBVA (Monterrey, Mexico) and Estadio Akron (Guadalajara, Mexico). Graham added that growing the bermudagrass took more than eight months.
“Because that was such a large project, you had to divide it up into segments. Get comfortable and then start adding to it,” Rogers said of the Field Days’ impact. “It’s like building something out of tinker toys.”
That work is necessary because of grass’ benefits over turf.
Injuries are more prevalent on turf — especially at MetLife. NFL stars Malik Nabers, Aaron Rodgers, Nick Bosa and more suffered season-ending injuries on MetLife’s turf in recent years.
David Copeland Smith, a trainer who’s worked with World Cup players, has seen it many times — one wrong step on turf, and “say goodbye to your ACL.” So, his players often wouldn’t go 100 percent on turf. One mentee, former USWNT defender Kelley O’Hara, refused to train on turf because she couldn’t practice at full speed and had a longer recovery process.
Dr. Nicola Maffulli, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, also told The Post that grass is much more forgiving. Turf typically leads to more Achilles and patellar tendon tears and separate injuries caused by continued strain on athletes’ legs.
An entire World Cup on turf would lead to “massive cumulative fatigue,” Copeland Smith added.
“I would rather play on an all-natural surface that’s banged up a little bit than a perfect turf pitch that looks beautiful to the eye because to me, there are underlying issues that will arise over the years,” said Kerr, whose playing career ended prematurely after two meniscus tears caused by training on turf.
Hence why FIFA requires grass for the World Cup.
“I want those players to step onto that field and just completely trust it,” Copeland Smith added. “My hope is that the pitch supports the spectacle, not competes with it.”
An early iteration of MetLife’s new grass pitch was showcased at last summer’s Club World Cup. But it was a disaster.
The games trudged along at a snail’s pace as players adjusted to softer and shorter grass. Borussia Dortmund manager Niko Kovač compared it to a putting green while expressing concern about MetLife’s watering system.
Players also complained that the pitch was “tough on the knees,” because softer grass often causes instability.
Lahoud said he felt the field preparation — adding the grass on top of MetLife’s turf — was rushed.
“I think it was kind of a throwaway. It’s more about enticing the teams to come than it is about the quality of the grass,” Lahoud said.
Tennessee, Michigan State and FIFA had one last chance to make tweaks to the pitch at the final Field Day in February, the first meeting since the Club World Cup.
Rogers said he wasn’t surprised by those results because many of the stadiums, such as MetLife, didn’t have adequate time to prepare the fields. Still, Kerr thinks the Club World Cup was perfectly timed to show any issues.
February’s Field Day featured every field manager plus many of the same FIFA executives and researchers present at the earlier gatherings. Through more testing, the group made adjustments to variables such as the growth lights to further improve the field, Rogers said.
“We are guided by the research, which gives us the tools to move forward, to put the infrastructure in place to make it what you see here today,” Graham said.
That research has fueled every aspect of MetLife’s World Cup pitch.
Sorochan’s hope — and belief — is that the field not only holds up across its 37 days in action, but that people won’t even notice a difference between Game 1 and the final on July 19.
In that case, Rogers would get his wish, too. The field wouldn’t be the story, the ultimate irony after years of work.
“A lot of great field managers, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into these pitches, and I think it’s going to be showcased for this World Cup,” Sorochan said.
