PHILADELPHIA — As the bidding to host 2026 men’s World Cup games reached its climax, one of the many fair questions out there had to do with stadiums’ playing surfaces.
Eight of the 16 venues chosen to host games have artificial-turf fields. Would players have to play on them, as infamously happened at the 2015 women’s World Cup? Or would temporary grass surfaces be installed, with their own major risks if the installations aren’t done well?
The answer was always going to be the latter, and it didn’t take long to make that official. But this is not a subject for short-term thinking. It takes some time to grow the grass, build the installation system, and put it all together — as happened in 1994, with Giants Stadium in northern New Jersey and the Silverdome near Detroit.
