The grass pitch for the World Cup final was installed Thursday at a stadium near New York, a milestone as anticipation builds for the top football tournament.
The final playing surface is the result of specialist research and was grown for months before being transported across the United States to provide the standard required of the competition.
“It’s only justice that the best players on the planet hopefully get the best grass on the planet, and we’re trying to achieve that,” said David Graham, the senior pitch manager for world governing body FIFA.
Pitch quality is often heavily scrutinized at World Cups as it can change how the ball travels: past iterations have seen complaints the grass is too dry, too soft or even slippery. Graham said that FIFA’s research — including at a dedicated dome stadium in Tennessee for experimenting with grass performance — would ensure the pitch was up to scratch.
“When it comes to delivering a field for the World Cup or for a tournament, to have those numbers, have all the thought process, it’s been very beneficial,” he said.
“I couldn’t do my job without any of that information.”
On Thursday, workers were tending to the freshly installed grass, which was laid in dozens of rectangular chunks at the 82,500-capacity MetLife Stadium.
The venue typically hosts NFL teams that play on artificial turf. That has been removed to host the grass, which was grown in North Carolina and trucked hundreds of miles to New Jersey.
The World Cup pitch sits on 18 inches of sand that contains its own ventilation and irrigation system.
A sewing machine-esque device will stitch together the individual chunks, filling the cracks and creating a seamless layer of grass. The MetLife Stadium — dubbed the New York New Jersey Stadium for the World Cup — is hosting eight World Cup matches and is one of 16 venues with games across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Located next to several highways, US lawmakers and fan groups have complained about the cost of accessing the stadium. A roundtrip train ticket from New York will cost $105 — down from an initially announced $150 but still well above the typical $12.90 fare.