The New York Giants and New York Jets play their home games at MetLife Stadium, which is notorious for being the scene of several horrific accidents. NFL fans are aware of the specific meaning of the term “MetLife curse” when it is said.
Most famously, back in week 1 of the 2023 NFL season, quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the New York Jets tore his Achilles on the MetLife field a few snaps into his franchise debut.
FIFA didn’t seem to care about that, since on Sunday, twenty-nine months before the match is scheduled to take place, they announced that the suburban New York City stadium would host the 2026 FIFA World Cup final.
MetLife Stadium’s artificial turf, which many players and fans believe is subpar and leads to more injuries, has long been criticized. Players claim that studies indicate artificial turf has a higher injury rate than natural grass, which is a subject of criticism for the NFL as a whole. Due to shared stadiums in New York and Los Angeles, seventeen NFL clubs play on turf, two utilize a hybrid, and thirteen use natural grass.
However, elite professional soccer players don’t actually play on turf. They believe the ball doesn’t perform as effectively on turf as it does on a well-kept grass pitch, but injury risk is still a factor. Top European teams usually install natural grass in their stadiums when they play friendly against American teams that use turf. This will be the case during the FIFA World Cup of 2026, since all of the games—including those held in MetLife Stadium—will be played on natural grass.
However, following the announcement, fans continued to make jokes about the “MetLife Curse.”
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