Dallas Gets Nine Matches: The City That Stole the Most Games

On the map of the 2026 World Cup, one city has been awarded more matches than any other—Dallas. Nine games. Including a semifinal. The AT&T Stadium in Dallas—the same place where we bundled up in puffer jackets for the Story series—holds 94,000 people, making it one of the largest-capacity venues in the entire tournament. But Dallas became the king of match counts not just because of its size. It's because of its location—right in the heart of the American South, roughly equidistant from the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast, and sitting in the Central Time Zone (one of the most TV-friendly slots for a global audience).

I went to Dallas to watch a group-stage match. The crowd that day—94,000 people, nearly full—generated a kind of noise you rarely hear in a football stadium. Not singing. Not drumming. It was a low, sustained roar—like a giant machine humming. A local told me: "That's how Texans watch sports. We don't sing. We don't dance. We just push all the air out of our lungs and let it come back naturally."

Dallas isn't the most famous city in World Cup history. But it might become a lot more famous after 2026—because among those nine games, there just might be one that future generations will have to mention when they talk about the history of the World Cup.