FIFA officials were at MetLife Stadium on Thursday to show off the new grass going in for the 2026 World Cup, a two-day installation that began Wednesday and was expected to run late into Thursday night. The first time anyone steps on that field, David Graham said, will be the first match of New York New Jersey.
That opening match is scheduled for June 13, when Brazil meets Morocco in the group stage at a stadium best known as the home of the Jets and Giants. The grass is being laid above the venue’s usual turf field, with 14 trucks on-site moving the pitch into place. The grass itself was grown at Carolina Green Turf Farm in North Carolina, and the same farm is also supplying the pitch for Arrowhead Stadium and several practice facilities used by national teams during the tournament.
The scale of the work is a reminder that MetLife is not simply switching fields, but preparing a temporary World Cup surface months in advance. Graham said the grass takes eight to 10 months to grow, and that there is an extensive protection program in place between installation and the start of the tournament. He said the system normally takes six to eight weeks and is repeated through the end of the World Cup as the stadium hosts matches for the 48-squad event.
“And it will be completely fine,” Graham said, adding that the crew has its “vacuum ventilation” and “hybrid reinforcement” steps lined up for the weekend. He also said, “It’s quite an extensive program. We’d like the weather to be a bit warmer so the grass would grow, obviously, but it’s a system that we normally take six to eight weeks, and we repeat, repeat, repeat through the end of the tournament.”
The field work comes as World Cup preparations around the Meadowlands keep building, with fans also being told elsewhere to plan ahead on food and parking and the nearby American Dream complex turning into a hub next to MetLife. On the travel side, NJ Transit is reducing the cost of train tickets to matches at the stadium after a round-trip fare from Manhattan was originally announced at $150 and later dropped to $105. President Donald Trump, when asked about the price, told The Post’s James Franey, “I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you.”
The grass may go down in two days, but keeping it playable from June into July is the real test. For MetLife, the first big judgment will not come Thursday night when the trucks leave. It will come on June 13, when Brazil and Morocco step onto the pitch and the stadium finds out whether all this preparation was enough.
