Iniesta and Kempes present World Cup trophy in New York-New Jersey

Andrés Iniesta, who scored the goal that gave Spain the 2010 World Cup, stood beside Mario Kempes to present the trophy in New York-New Jersey as FIFA staged the final as a meeting of football eras.

The presentation came before the World Cup final scheduled for Sunday, 19 July 2026, in the New York-New Jersey stadium that FIFA announced on 4 February 2024. That venue is set to host eight matches in all at the 2026 tournament, including the final, and it also appears in FIFA and On Location’s official hospitality information for the event.

Iniesta’s presence carried the weight of Spain’s most famous recent title, while Kempes linked the ceremony to an earlier Argentine triumph and to the country’s older World Cup identity. The pairing made the trophy itself the center of the pre-match show, with today’s stars gathered around a prize defined by two men whose names still anchor different generations of the tournament’s history.

The ceremony stretched beyond football. Coverage of the presentation also included Carlos Alcaraz and Hoyeon among the figures attached to the build-up, alongside Tom Cruise, Jennifer Hudson, Robbie Williams, Post Malone and IShowSpeed. The match between Argentina and Spain then began six minutes late after the pre-game sequence.

FIFA has also used the New York-New Jersey spotlight to push the 2026 Final Halftime Show, placing Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber and BTS in its promotional material for the venue. The official messaging turns the stadium into more than a match site: it is the tournament’s central stage for ceremony, celebrity and image, with the trophy presentation serving as the clearest symbol of that strategy.

The result was a final framed not only by the teams on the field, but by the memory carried in the trophy itself. Iniesta and Kempes gave the prize a lineage that stretched from 2010 back to Argentina’s earlier World Cup triumphs, while the New York-New Jersey setting gave FIFA a global broadcast image built around legacy as much as competition.