The 2026 World Cup kicks off in just a few weeks and everyone is excited. The grass on which the tournament's 104 matches will be played has a vital but often overlooked role. Scientists have fed, mowed and stamped on miles of turf to get it right.
It happened just eight minutes into the match. Ángel Di María stole the ball from a Canadian defender and took off toward his opponent's goal. One of Argentina's greatest footballers of all time had only the keeper to beat in a decisive moment in the group stages of the 2024 Copa America football tournament.
But as he dribbled the ball towards the goal, he seemed to struggle to control it. Confronted by the Canadian goalkeeper at the edge of the penalty area, all Di Maria could muster was a relatively weak toe poke. The keeper blocked it easily.
After the match, the Argentinean coach and players offered an explanation for what might have gone wrong. The reigning World Cup champions claimed the quality of the grass on the pitch in Atlanta, Georgia, in the US, affected their performance.
The stadium where the match was being played – normally home to NFL side the Atlanta Falcons and Major League Soccer team Atlanta United – usually has an artificial pitch, but it had been replaced with a temporary grass surface just days before the tournament.
Players complained that the ball jumped like "a springboard", describing the pitch as a "disaster". Concerns about the quality of the pitches continued to dog the tournament as games were played in other stadiums around the US.
With the 2026 World Cup approaching, it is criticism that co-hosts US, Canada and Mexico will be eager to avoid. And they have brought in a team of specialists to make sure there are no complaints.
Over the past eight years researchers have bounced balls, stomped boots and abused patches of grass in the search for the perfect turf. They've fed, watered and nurtured different mixes of grass species to see how they'll cope. And they've measured blades of grass millimetre by millimetre to find their perfect length.
"It's a lot of pressure," says John Sorochan, a professor at the University of Tennessee, who has been contracted by Fifa to help oversee the growth, installation and care of the grass pitches at all 16 World Cup stadiums, including five that are covered by domes.
"Those are the ones that really have me worried," Sorochan says, "Because the Sun's gonna come up, but it's not going to come up inside. Plants need light, ideally sunlight, to grow."
With the 2026 men's World Cup now just weeks away, the cumulative result of more than 170 different experiments conducted by Sorochan and his fellow researchers is about to be put to the test. They have built on decades of research on the science of cultivating and installing turfgrass on sports pitches.
Yet the grass pitches they have developed for the different stadiums across the US, Canada and Mexico will be trampled by 21 players at a time for more than 90 minutes per game, across 104 matches. The ambitions of the world's top football players and billions of fans around the world will rest on how the grass holds up.
The researchers tested the turf for not only how the ball interacts with the surface but also the traction it gives players. They looked for ways to minimise divots during matches and avoiding wet spots that might interrupt the flow of a game. Worst still, a poor surface could have catastrophic consequences – leading to career ending injuries for players worth millions.
The geographic spread of stadiums also means the pitches have to flourish in dramatically distinct climatic zones – from the humid heat of Mexico City and Miami to the cool of Toronto and Boston.
To cope with this, the researchers have developed root systems, irrigation methods and maintenance schedules that are specific to each location. They have also tested different grass species to find the ideal type for the conditions. In warmer climates the turf will consist of Bermuda grass while cooler climates will have a mix of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass.
Sorochan and his team determined that Bermuda grass pitches should be cut slightly shorter, because they're denser and dry more quickly than pitches of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass.
To help make the pitches more uniform and durable, plastic fibres similar to those used in artificial turf, have been woven into the sod.
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