{"id":794300,"date":"2026-05-13T21:17:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T21:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794300\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T21:17:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T21:17:19","slug":"a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-lincoln-financial-fields-2026-fifa-world-cup-makeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794300\/","title":{"rendered":"A behind the scenes look at Lincoln Financial Field’s 2026 FIFA World Cup makeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 FIFA World Cup<\/a>\u00a0is less than a month away, and Philadelphia is one of the host cities<\/a>\u00a0for the biggest sporting event on the planet.<\/p>\n

Lincoln Financial Field has a perfect pitch. The Linc will host six World Cup matches<\/a>\u00a0with the first on June 14. On Wednesday, CBS News Philadelphia got a first-hand look at the transformation of the field from the pitch to the signage.<\/p>\n

“We are most excited about being able to showcase Philadelphia and Lincoln Financial Field for the world,” Meg Kane, host city executive and CEO of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, said.<\/p>\n

\"fifa-world-cup-linc.jpg<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

Lincoln Financial Field was designed for hosting world-class events.<\/p>\n

“When we built Lincoln Financial Field, one of the things that we made a promise to the city and state is that we would bring large-scale events, worldwide events here,” Frank Gumienny, chief operating officer of the Philadelphia and chief tournament officer of Philadelphia Soccer 2026, said.<\/p>\n

The transformation includes altering the field corners for soccer corner kicks, meeting FIFA’s required dimensions and installing the pitch.<\/p>\n

\"linc-world-cup.jpg<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

“This is Kentucky bluegrass. It’s a hybrid \u2014 it’s a reinforced fiber system,” Eagles vice president of grounds Tony Leonard said. “Working with our partner Tuckahoe [Turf Farms] over in Hammonton, we’ll have a staff of 10 on just a day-to-day level working on this pitch and then when we get up leading into the tournament, we’ll have a pool of about 30.”<\/p>\n

And you can’t miss the bird’s eye view of the signage inside and outside the Linc, showing off the Philly pride with a “We are Philadelphia” centerpiece.<\/p>\n

\"we-are-philadelphia.jpg<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

“We felt that coming out of the bid that many, especially globally, didn’t have a very good understanding of Philadelphia,” Kane said. “And so really trying to embrace the ‘We are Philadelphia’ to convey our authenticity and what makes us different.”<\/p>\n

The last of the six games played on the beautiful pitch at the Linc will be a Round of 16 match on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 FIFA World Cup\u00a0is less than a month away, and Philadelphia is one of the host cities\u00a0for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":794301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,73543,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,21490],"class_list":{"0":"post-794300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-lincoln-financial-field","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116569352805433980","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}