At the 2025 Club World Cup, Jude Bellingham said the ball barely bounced and Luis Enrique said it hopped like a rabbit. Those pitches were shallow sod laid days before kickoff. For 2026, FIFA grows rooted grass to keep ball roll and bounce steady.

Niklas Süle called the MetLife Stadium pitch pretty terrible. Achraf Hakimi said a dry field slowed the whole match. Borussia Dortmund’s Gregor Kobel said his pitch felt dry, and Pascal Gross said it was nothing compared to the grass they usually play on. ⁴

Seattle’s Lumen Field used sod laid about ten days before the tournament, only a couple of inches thick, set on temporary flooring and watered by hand, so it dried out fast in an afternoon sun. MetLife used a shallow pitch profile installed less than a week before kickoff. Concerts had already booked the install windows, which left little time for the grass to root before players ran on it. ⁴

Rogers and Sorochan grew the 2026 grass

Michigan State’s John Rogers and Tennessee’s John Sorochan built the playing surfaces for all 16 venues with FIFA funding, after FIFA pitch-management manager Alan Ferguson asked them to lead the work. They grew the grass to make the ball bounce, roll and grip the same way from city to city across 104 matches starting June 11th. ⁵

They split the venues into two grass families across 88 miles of sod. Warm-weather venues use Bermudagrass. Cooler and indoor venues use a Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass blend, settled through FIFA-funded trials at roughly 84% bluegrass and 16% ryegrass because that mix rooted faster and held up better than bluegrass alone. The sod is grown on plastic so it can be lifted and trucked into each stadium across the United States, Canada and Mexico. ⁵

FIFA ran those trials long before the tournament. The Club World Cup pitches that drew complaints were laid days earlier and never rooted, which is where the slow, low bounce came from.

Inside Vancouver’s BC Place pitch

Vancouver’s BC Place uses roughly 95% natural grass on 5% synthetic backing, grown for a year in BC’s Fraser Valley, then harvested, moved in refrigerated trucks and installed at the stadium. The Globe and Mail describes sand and peat over a plastic honeycomb structure and a waterproof liner, with root-zone sensors feeding high-speed irrigation and vacuum ventilation that can saturate and drain the field in three minutes. ¹

The grass is mowed to exactly 22 millimetres, and the Globe report says cutting a few millimetres too short could stress the field enough to ruin it. Ten grow lights, each over 1,800 kilograms, sit on the pitch for twelve hours a day. Six industrial fans, near 600 kilograms each, ventilate the field to keep root rot and fungus away. BC Place manages the grass, drainage, ventilation, lighting and mowing together, and the pitch is ready only when ball roll, shock absorption and footing are inside FIFA’s target range. ¹

Vancouver’s grass had a year to root. Seattle’s Club World Cup sod had about ten days.

Making 16 stadiums play alike

FIFA has to make pitches play alike across domes, heat, altitude and stadiums that normally use artificial turf. Its project measures ball roll, bounce, traction and maintenance at the 16 venues across three host countries. ²

The tournament runs 104 matches in 16 stadiums. Eight of those stadiums normally use artificial turf and five have domes. Each field needs reinforced natural grass, automatic irrigation, drainage, built-in vacuum and vents, and grow lights, so a player in Philadelphia gets footing comparable to a player in Guadalajara or Seattle. Vancouver uses root-zone sensors, and FIFA chose two grass mixes, to hold ball roll and footing in the same range across stadiums. ³

The eight artificial-turf venues each need a fresh natural-grass build, and the five domed stadiums grow that grass with less sunlight. ^{1 3 4}

Watering and rooting still decide the pitch

Even with FIFA’s design, a dry, shallow or poorly watered pitch can still slow passes and loosen footing. At the Club World Cup the sod went in late, sat shallow, dried out and had little time to root. FIFA’s own monitoring tracks surface hardness, traction and ball roll, and its staff adjust with real-time irrigation during cooling breaks. ⁴

For 2026, venues get deeper pitch profiles with a proper sand base and longer exclusive-use windows that start weeks before a match. Some installs come earlier still, with Atlanta building its pitch in the winter before the season. Even so, a missed watering cycle, a drainage fault or a mowing error can leave a field that looks fine on television and plays slow, soft or unstable. ⁴

What to check before kickoff

Analysts should check ball roll, bounce and footing before kickoff, the way they check weather, travel and recovery. The Club World Cup pitches that drew complaints ran dry, slowed passes and kept the ball down. In the warm-up, staff can watch whether first touches die, players slip on hard cuts, goalkeepers’ driven passes hold up, and the grass tears or studs catch when players sprint and stop.

Analysts can record a few controlled passes over different zones during the stadium session. Goalkeeper coaches can watch whether punts and driven passes skid, sit up or hold. Fitness and medical staff can note slips, studs catching, divots and player complaints. Set-piece staff can check planting-foot stability around corners and wide free kicks. Scouts can start venue notes from the table above and add the install date, watering and drainage problems, and what earlier matches at that venue showed.

Staff should also ask when the pitch was last watered, whether the roof is closed, how long the grow lights and fans have run, and whether the surface drained after a heavy watering cycle. From what they see, they can set passing weight, first-touch choices, stud length and pressing distances before kickoff.

Tony Valente, who works on infrastructure and capital projects for BC Pavilion Corp., told the Globe and Mail that the pitch is an entire system of devices and buildup. ¹ If players do not complain about the pitch, the ball-roll, traction and bounce tests probably stayed in range, and players could trust their studs when planting, turning and landing at any venue.