The Final Before the Final: What the Club World Cup Told Us About 2026

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It’s hard to cut through the clutter in America's greatest metropolis, but one of soccer’s biggest summer events did take a super-sized bite out of the Big Apple. 

Passengers streamed off planes at LaGuardia Airport wearing Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain jerseys. Outside the swanky midtown Manhattan hotels that housed the FIFA Club World Cup finalists, fans dressed head to toe in their team’s colors crowded on the sidewalks, hoping to catch a glimpse of Cole Palmer or Ousmane Dembele.

At MetLife Stadium, a few miles west of the Hudson River, three military helicopters roared overhead — one of them carrying Donald Trump, who became the first sitting American president ever to attend a major international soccer match.

It was a preview of what’s to come one year from now, when the New York area (and more specifically, suburban New Jersey) will crown the 2026 World Cup champion on the same field.

(Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Culturally speaking, nothing comes close to a World Cup final. Almost 1.5 billion people — more than a sixth of the planet’s population — watched the epic 2022 decider between Lionel Messi’s Argentina and Kylian Mbappe’s France in Qatar. The Super Bowl, by way of comparison, draws a global television audience of less than 200 million.

Still, Sunday’s Club World Cup final felt like a legitimately big deal around New York. It was also a fitting preview of what will occur next July 19.

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The Club World Cup had its detractors before and during the competition. Many of those criticisms were valid. Ticket prices were priced too high initially,