Set against the backdrop of Levi’s Stadium, the official FIFA World Cup countdown clock began ticking down from 365 days on Wednesday morning, signaling the approach of the world’s biggest soccer tournament that’s coming to the Bay Area next year.
Excitement reverberated throughout the Santa Clara Youth Soccer Park as city officials unveiled the host city plaque to a crowd of kids clad in cleats and jerseys who were eager to take part in a youth soccer clinic led by former San Jose Earthquakes player Shea Salinas.
For Mayor Lisa Gillmor, who helped found the soccer park more than two decades ago, the bronze plaque represents more than the honor of hosting the World Cup — it is a symbol for the “countless young players who will be inspired to pick up a ball and start their journey.”
A plaque is unveiled at the Santa Clara Youth Soccer Park in Santa Clara, Calif., Wednesday, June 11, 2025. (Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group)
“This World Cup will do something extraordinary for our youth soccer community,” Gillmor said. “It will bring new resources, new opportunities and new inspirations. More kids will want to play, more families will get involved and more dreams will take root right here in Santa Clara.”
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The Silicon Valley enclave is one of 16 cities across North America that was selected to host the 2026 World Cup. The soccer tournament will feature teams from 48 countries — up from 32 — meaning teams that haven’t qualified in the past will be making their World Cup debut. This is already the case for Uzbekistan, which captured a spot from the Asian region.
Six matches will be played at Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, including one knockout match on July 1, 2026. Preparations have long been underway as the 49ers, who manage the stadium, announced last year that they were making $200 million in renovations to the more than decade-old venue.
FIFA is expected to hold the World Cup 2026 group stage draw ceremony at the end of the year — which will determine which teams play in the Levi’s Stadium matches — while ticket sales are likely to begin in the fall. But there is a chance that national teams included in President Donald Trump’s travel ban might not make it to the tournament.
The Trump administration recently signed an order barring nationals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States. Citizens from seven other countries — Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela — will face partial travel restrictions. The ban went into effect on Monday.
Trump’s order specifies an exception for athletes, coaches, important staffers and immediate family for athletes traveling to the U.S. for the World Cup, Olympics and “other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.” But it says nothing about fans of these national teams.
In February, the Santa Clara City Council signed off on a key agreement that will shift the financial risk of hosting the World Cup to the Bay Area Host Committee, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing major sporting events to the region. City officials estimate that the cost of hosting the tournament, which includes public safety costs and other improvements necessary to meet FIFA requirements, will run anywhere between $45 million and $50 million. The Bay Area Host Committee is in the process of fundraising, and the 49ers have agreed to act as a financial backstop if the nonprofit can’t cover all the costs.
The World Cup is the second major sporting event coming to Santa Clara next year as Levi’s Stadium will host its second Super Bowl — the 60th “Big Game” –on Feb. 8, 2026. But the World Cup is expected to put millions more eyes on the city.
“Super Bowl is America’s game, there’s a lot of awareness around what that is to people who live in the United States, to people who follow the 49ers,” Zaileen Janmohamed, the president and CEO of the Bay Area Host Committee, said in an interview. “The World Cup is the world’s game, and with that comes extra exposure.”
Janmohamed, who has has attended several World Cups in the past, said that Santa Clara and the greater Bay Area will experience a passion from soccer fans and an energy around the sport like they’ve never seen before. During the 1994 World Cup, which had matches at the old Stanford Stadium, the Brazilian national team and their fans descended on downtown Los Gatos, dancing through the streets following a win against the United States in a knockout match.
“There’s something about the sport,” Janmohamed said. “Not only is it beautiful to watch, but it just captivates people of all different backgrounds, all different races, and it’s really the sport that brings people together. I cannot wait for the Bay Area to experience that.”
Aly Wagner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Cup bronze medalist who helped co-found Bay FC, was 13-years-old the last time the soccer tournament came to town.
“It changed that drive to I want to play for the national team, I want to go experience what those players are feeling on the pitch when 90,000 fans are getting out of their seat and screaming their heads off because you just scored a goal that puts them into the next round,” she said in an interview. “It changed my life in that suddenly it wasn’t a if, it was a when I would play on the world stage.”
Wagner knows that a whole new generation of Bay Area kids will be inspired by next year’s World Cup, and expects to see the fruits of the experience in the next 10 years.
“That’s the passion that is going to set them internally on fire and ignite dreams,” she said. “You’re going to have this younger generation fall in love with the game in a way that they didn’t even know they could — even if they already love it.”
Gabriel Sama contributed to this report.