The 2026 FIFA World Cup is set to be the biggest edition in the tournament’s history.
For the first time, 48 teams will compete across 104 matches, with games spread across the United States, Mexico and Canada.
That scale means FIFA has not only had to think about teams, tickets and travel, but also about something much more basic: the pitches.
Several North American stadiums were built primarily for the NFL, concerts or multi-purpose events, not elite football. That has made the playing surface a major talking point.
A recent viral video from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami showed huge rolls of grass being laid across the field, prompting fans to ask whether the surface would be safe for players at next summer’s World Cup.
The final sod roll is down 🙌
— Hard Rock Stadium (@HardRockStadium) May 27, 2026
T-19 days until Miami takes the stage! pic.twitter.com/3u7Gq8qxgR
What the clip actually shows is sod installation. The grass is grown off-site, transported to the stadium, rolled into place, and then prepared for elite-level football.
According to reporting on Miami’s World Cup preparation, Hard Rock Stadium’s grass is grown at the Miami Dolphins’ own sod farm in Loxahatchee Groves, around 61 miles from the stadium.
Stadium operations handle the removal and installation process, while FIFA then comes in afterwards to complete pitch stitching, a reinforcement method being used across World Cup venues.
This was also the same broad process used when Hard Rock Stadium hosted matches during the Club World Cup.
The venue still had to be converted into a football stadium using a natural-grass surface, with the local stadium team handling the grass operation and FIFA overseeing tournament pitch standards.
However, that has not fully reassured supporters.
Even if the surface is natural grass, fans are worried about how it behaves once it has been laid in sections inside a multi-use stadium.
The concerns are simple: seams between rolls, uneven patches, loose sod, limited rooting time and a potentially harder base underneath.
In football, where players constantly sprint, cut, plant and twist, even a small issue with the surface can become a major injury fear.
Fans have pointed to the fact that in this same stadium in the Club World Cup, Al Ahly’s Emam Ashour suffered a broken collarbone after an early fall against Inter Miami, Boca Juniors midfielder Ander Herrera was substituted with a muscle injury against Benfica, and Bayern Munich’s Jamal Musiala had an injury scare against Boca Juniors, even though reports later described his substitution as precautionary.
Fans have also brought Tottenham and Real Madrid into the conversation because both clubs moved into this new era of stadium technology before their injury problems became major talking points.
I ruptured my ACL just watching this. https://t.co/zMZMPsn8OE
— Carl (@Carl_M79) May 28, 2026
Spurs opened Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2019 with a retractable pitch system, while Real Madrid’s renovated Bernabéu began using its retractable pitch and underground grass-storage system in 2023.
Since then, both clubs have faced growing questions about whether these high-tech surfaces are affecting players.
At Tottenham, the concern has become serious enough for the club to review it internally. Sky Sports reported that Spurs have investigated whether the retractable pitch at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is contributing to their injury crisis.
In the recent injury-hit period, Tottenham players have missed 370 games across all competitions this season, the most of any Premier League side, and reports say the club has had 123 injuries since the start of the 2024/25 campaign.
Real Madrid’s numbers are more focused on knee injuries since the Bernabéu’s retractable pitch became operational in 2023. Since August 2023, reports have pointed to seven ACL injuries involving Madrid players, a run that has led fans and Spanish media to question both the Bernabéu surface and the club’s training pitches.
While none of this proves that the surface caused those injuries, either in Miami, London or Madrid, it explains the fans’ concerns about the Hard Rock Stadium footage.
When venues are built to switch between football, NFL, concerts and other events, the playing surface becomes part of the risk conversation. And ahead of the biggest World Cup ever, the only concern is will the surface have enough time to settle properly before the world’s best players are asked to sprint, cut and tackle on it?
