World Cup reaches semifinals as record-breaking U.S. tournament nears finale

France and Spain met in Dallas on Tuesday as the 2026 World Cup entered its semifinal round, with England and Argentina set to follow in Atlanta on Wednesday. The bracket has pushed four of the sport’s biggest names to the front of the tournament, and it has done so in a competition already larger than any World Cup before it.

This is the 23rd edition of the tournament, the first to feature 48 teams and the first jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States. FIFA scheduled 104 matches across 16 host cities from June 11 through July 19, with the final set for New York/New Jersey Stadium. FIFA also confirmed 1,248 players representing 48 nations in the final squad lists on June 2, a field that helped turn the tournament into a sprawling three-country event with a reach far beyond the semifinal bracket.

The France-Spain matchup carries the clearest star contrast. France brings Kylian Mbappe, one of the most recognizable players in the world, while Spain has leaned on Lamine Yamal, the teenager whose rise has made him one of the breakout names of the tournament. Dallas has become the stage for that collision of established force and emerging talent, a pairing that captures why this World Cup has felt different from the start.

England and Argentina give Atlanta a different kind of semifinal narrative. The match places two national teams with massive followings into a knockout round that has already delivered the scale FIFA wanted from a 48-team event. For American spectators, the appeal has not only been the football itself but also the tournament atmosphere around it, from stadium crowds to the off-field rituals of visiting supporters taking in Buc-ee’s stops and the novelty of unlimited free soda in the United States.

The numbers underline the scale. Group-stage attendance reached 4,644,549 spectators, with an average crowd of 64,508 per match, according to FIFA attendance figures compiled for the tournament. That volume of turnout has helped make the U.S. edition the biggest ever in World Cup history, and it has kept attention fixed on the semifinal cities as the bracket narrows toward Sunday’s final in New York/New Jersey Stadium.