SoFi Stadium's World Cup Pitch Takes Shape

Inglewood's grass goes in

On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, crews at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood pulled the venue's final demountable seating section and formally kicked off pitch construction for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, according to NBC Los Angeles. The stadium, rebranded as Los Angeles Stadium for the tournament, will host eight World Cup matches this June and July. That slate includes the United States men's national team opener on June 12 and the group stage finale on June 25, plus a quarterfinal later in the bracket. With kickoff roughly eight weeks out, the visible infrastructure work is finally on the clock.

The headline change is the field itself. More than 400 corner seats were temporarily removed to widen the playing surface from the NFL's roughly 54 yard width to FIFA's 68 meter (about 74 yard) international standard. Crews will lay nearly 74,000 square feet of real grass over a hybrid base, supported by a permeable vacuum ventilation layer for drainage and a bank of grow lights designed to keep the surface healthy inside a largely covered venue. The build sits on top of SoFi's usual artificial turf, so the soccer field will ride noticeably higher than a Rams or Chargers gameday setup.

Two quotes framed the status update at the site. "It's a natural grass field that will be put in an outdoor venue, but we are creating a venue here so that it could thrive," Clark Construction executive Rick Solomon told NBC Los Angeles. Otto Benedict, SoFi's Vice President of Facility and Campus Operations, told the same outlet fans will sit unusually tight to the action, saying, "If you were standing right there, that's where the grass pitch will come up to. So, you will be closer than any other venue." SoFi confirmed a capacity of 69,000 fixed seats, plus suites, for the World Cup run.

Why it matters for the road to 2026

For the road to 2026, this matters because host readiness is judged on the quiet details: pitch quality, drainage, how a venue adapts its sightlines when hundreds of corner seats come out for a wider soccer field. Three host nations, sixteen host cities, and a tournament window that stretches travel logistics well beyond any single-nation precedent leave very little margin for venue issues once the group stage begins. Inglewood is locking those decisions in now, with a planned cushion of about 28 days between a fully laid grass surface and the first whistle. Multiply that discipline across all eleven US host cities and the picture of infrastructure rollout starts to come into focus.

USMNT connection and match-week travel

SoFi is as tightly tied to the USMNT's schedule as any venue in the tournament. Mauricio Pochettino's side opens Group D against Paraguay at SoFi on June 12, heads to Lumen Field in Seattle to face Australia on June 19, then returns to SoFi on June 25 to close group play against a European playoff winner, per Goal.com. The team will base itself at the Great Park Championship Soccer Stadium in Irvine, a 6,500 seat facility built in 2017 that sits about 45 miles southeast of Inglewood and less than 15 miles from John Wayne Airport. Supporters mapping out match-week travel between Irvine, Inglewood, and downtown Los Angeles will need a real transit plan, since regional rail and shuttle options into SoFi are already being marketed around the event.

Timeline to June 12

SoFi officials told NBC Los Angeles that the field will begin to look like a proper soccer pitch about a month from now, at which point the venue will sit 28 days out from its first World Cup match. That lead time matters for more than groundskeepers, because warm-up events typically unlock new entry patterns, parking routes, and security perimeters that ticket holders need to learn before June. Hotel blocks around Inglewood and the South Bay are already thinning for opener weekend, and ticket availability on the official FIFA platform has tightened as secondary markets track every policy shift. The site, which hosted Hollywood Park Racetrack from 1938 to 2013, is about to stage a very different kind of marquee event.

The wider context is that Los Angeles is one leg in an eleven-city US host map that will be stress-tested through May and June, as documented in our April 18 US hosting brief. SoFi's pitch work is the visible end of a much larger coordination running across each of those venues, from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough to Arrowhead in Kansas City. Readers can compare how Inglewood's progress stacks up against the rest of the US slate in our venues guide, and check the full 2026 match schedule for confirmed group-stage kickoff times. The headline on April 15 was simple: the pitch is going in. The rest of the stadium will catch up fast.

Sources

• NBC Los Angeles, SoFi Stadium kicks off pitch construction for 2026 FIFA World Cup (April 15, 2026)
• Clark Construction, SoFi Stadium Kicks Off Pitch Construction for 2026 FIFA World Cup
• Goal.com, USMNT set World Cup base camp in Irvine's Great Park