Soccer
World Cup stories: From altitude to heat to time zones — the physical challenges of a three-country tournament
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The upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup, now just 39 days away, will be the biggest version of the tournament with 48 teams playing 104 matches across three countries.
But while it's the biggest in terms of number of matches and teams involved, this summer's competition will also be the biggest in terms of sheer physical size.
The North American continent is massive, with Canada and the United States each in the top five largest nations in the world by land mass. Add in Mexico, which is 13th, and there are some serious distances to cover.
Along with size comes other variables, including changes in time zones, altitude and temperature as teams criss-cross the continent in search of footballing glory.
How will this affect the tournament? DAZN News takes a look at the challenges presented by the geographic spread of the upcoming competition.
Travel
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Anyone who's travelled in any of the three host countries knows how spread out they are. Add them together and it could make for a logistical nightmare.
To mitigate this, FIFA divided the tournament into geographic clusters to limit travel, especially in the group stage. The 16 host cities are separated into three regions (western, cental and eastern) with most teams remaining within their region for the three-match group stage.
Western region
- Vancouver
- Seattle
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
Central region
- Kansas City
- Dallas
- Houston
- Monterrey
- Guadalajara
- Mexico City
Eastern region
- Toronto
- Boston
- New York
- Philadelphia
- Atlanta
- Miami
Travel between cities in each region, while still significant compared to most previous World Cups, should be manageable, especially as each region falls within its own time zone. However, there are exceptions among the groups, most notably co-host Canada's Group B.
And after the group stage ends, many teams will leave their regions and really tack on the air miles. To note, even Russia 2018 did not have as extensive a geographic spread as the 2026 World Cup will have, as the host cities in 2018 were intentionally concentrated in western Russia to limit travel.
A flight from Mexico City to Seattle or Vancouver, which could happen to teams in the early knockout stages, would cover 3800-4000 kilometres. That's over 1000 kilometres farther than the maximum distance between any two host cities at Russia 2018.
Teams who are used to travelling long distances for matches — that's basically every side who participate in continental qualifying tournaments outside of Europe — could be at an advantage.
Time zones
As mentioned, there will be four time zones to cross in this summer's competition, but most of the teams will be shielded from this until the knockout stages.
FIFA has also attempted to mitigate the effects of multiple time zones by gradually moving the tournament eastward as the knockout stages wear on — there are only three total matches scheduled inside the Pacific Time Zone from the round of 16 onwards, and only one in the quarter-final round.
This should help, as the competition shrinks with each passing week, but for the teams who start their journey on the West Coast and move east it could still mean a big shift as they spend their first three or four weeks in North America (including pre-tournament training camps) in Pacific Daylight Time only to have their wake-up calls come three hours earlier when they move to the East Coast.
That could favour teams who play their group stage matches in the east, especially if they can win their respective groups and remain in the same time zone throughout their stay.
Altitude
Jose Luis Torales/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Another byproduct of hosting a World Cup on the giant land mass shared by the three biggest countries in North America is the variations in altitude between the host cities.
Coastal venues such as New York, Miami, Vancouver, Los Angeles and Houston all sit at or near sea level, so even with their varied climates (which we get to below) they all present similar profiles in terms of oxygen concentration and barometric pressure. That's important, of course, as players will be breathing heavily throughout the 90-minute matches in the group stage and potential 120-minute games in the knockouts.
At sea level, the effective oxygen percentage is 20.9%. For every 1000 feet of altitude added, the effective oxygen drops nearly one percentage point.
This becomes very noticeable in the three Mexican cities: Monterrey (1770 ft.), Guadalajara (5,200 ft) and Mexico City (7350 ft.), but even Kansas City (909 ft.) could present a challenge if a team comes from a coastal city to face a side already accustomed to the altitude.
As such, teams in Groups A, F and K could gain an advantage by acclimatizing in Mexico during the 16-day group stage before moving to the lower altitude cities in the later stages of the tournament.
Temperature
Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images
One factor that may be inescapable outside of a couple of host cities is the heat of a North American summer.
As with everything else, temperatures will vary as teams move through the different climates of the continent. Vancouver and Seattle share a temperate climate with an average high in the low-to-mid 20s Celsius in June and July, but the other 14 cities can (and probably will) pack a punch when it comes to temperatures at kick-off.
Outdoor venues in New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Kansas City and even Toronto and Boston (Foxborough) could sit in sweltering temperatures when humidity is factored in, with similar concerns as seen in last year's FIFA Club World Cup. Fortunately, many of the hottest cities (Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and Los Angeles) feature indoor facilities, mitigating the heat issue for games in those venues.
Still, FIFA has instituted mandatory three-minute hydration breaks for each game in this summer's tournament, to be enacted approximately 22 minutes into each half. Will it be enough to battle the intensity of the summer sun?
And will the heat, travel and time zone changes affect how teams approach their matches?
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