Boston, MA
FIFA releases Boston World Cup 2026 national teams and schedule for matches at Gillette Stadium – The Boston Globe
Saturday, June 13, 9 p.m.: Haiti vs. Scotland, Group C.
Tuesday, June 16, 6 p.m.: Norway vs. whoever emerges from the qualifying playoff tourney between Iraq, Bolivia, and Suriname, Group I.
Friday, June 19, 6 p.m.: Scotland vs. Morocco, Group C.
Tuesday, June 23, 4 p.m.: No. 5 England vs. Ghana, Group L.
Friday, June 26, 3 p.m.: Norway vs. No. 3 France, Group I.
The June 26 matchup will feature arguably the two top strikers in the world, Norway’s Erling Haaland and France’s Kylian Mbappe.
For a Round of 32 game Monday, June 29, the winner of Group E will play one of the third-place finishers from Groups A, B, C, D, or F. Should the US national team perform below expectations in a Group D it is favored by most to win, there is a chance it could play at Boston Stadium in that June 29 match.
A July 9 quarterfinal match will be played at 4 pm.
While Brazil is one of the teams that will not be playing at Gillette, local organizers are still pleased with how everything shook out, both from a high-caliber soccer perspective and seeing a robust group of international fans visit greater Boston and pump dollars into its economy.
“We got two highlight matches, which is amazing,” said Brian Bilello, Boston 26 board chair and president of the Revolution. “We’ve got France-Norway, where you wind up with two of the top five players in the world in Mbappe and Haaland playing against each other, that match is going to be a pretty special one.
“And the other top Pot 1 team is England, which is always a popular team and that should be a fun match against Ghana.”
For fifth-ranked Brazil not to play in Boston will come as a disappointment to many, especially in Framingham with its large Brazilian population. But Bilello, without elaborating, fueled widely available rumors that Brazil will play France in a friendly at Gillette on March 28.
“We know our Brazilian fans are going to be somewhat disappointed but hopefully we have a way of making them happy this spring with something else,” said Bilello.
Besides Brazil, the final draw eliminated these teams from visiting Boston: Group I’s Senegal, and Croatia and Panama from Group L.
There are 16 host cities, 11 in the United States, three in Mexico, and two in Canada.
Martha Sheridan, a Boston 26 honorary board member and president/CEO of Meet Boston, said she was “generally very pleased” with the draw results.
“We’re getting folks from Norway and England and France, who tend to travel well for their matches,” said Sheridan. “And I also love the fact that we have Morocco and Haiti, which from a local perspective is just lovely. The community can have some pride in their teams because we do have a considerably high Haitian (in Boston) and Moroccan population (in East Boston and Revere).”
With approximately 32,000 hotel rooms available in Boston, Sheridan does not expect any challenges in accommodating visitors.
One unknown is if fans from Haiti will be allowed to visit. Haiti is on a list of countries that the Trump administration has banned its citizens from traveling to the United States for terrorism and national security concerns.
“My hope is that the federal government is wanting to have a very successful World Cup here in the US, so maybe they will look differently at those bans in light of the fact that Haiti does have a team coming here,” said Sheridan.
FIFA spent Friday night and into Saturday morning figuring out the final pieces of the logistical puzzle of placing the 48 teams in those venues, balancing travel, time zones, recovery, and preparation factors.
The Revolution’s training center near Gillette will be used by national teams in the days before each match.
Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I., will be paired with one team playing in Foxborough as a base camp for the duration of its tournament survival. Other Boston area locations may yet be announced. (FIFA controls the process.)
With Scotland and Norway each playing two matches in Boston, chances increase they will want to set up a base camp in the area.
“Now that we know who’s coming, the excitement is just going to continue to build,” said Sheridan. “It will be here before we know it and we cannot wait to welcome the world to Boston.”
Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com.
It’s going to be a little while longer before Roman Anthony returns to action.
The Red Sox outfielder has suffered another setback in his recovery from a sprained right hand and will be shut down from swinging for a couple of days.
Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy told reporters in Cleveland that Anthony tried hitting off a tee Thursday for the first time since suffering his injury on May 4, but that he found doing so to be painful.
“He hit off the tee (yesterday) and had some discomfort, so we’re going to slow play it,” Tracy said, per MLB.com’s Henry Palattella. “It’s going to be day-to-day, or even the better way is ‘action-to-action.’ (We’re going to be asking), ‘What did he do today, is that uncomfortable and do we have to wait?’ ”
Originally thought to be a minor issue that might not even require a stint on the injured list, Anthony has now missed 21 games and likely won’t be back until early-to-mid June.
The recovery process has also been halting. Anthony has continued doing most other baseball activities, including running and throwing, but it wasn’t until earlier this week that he could swing a bat free of discomfort.
Once he was able to comfortably take dry swings — or swing a bat without hitting the ball — the next step was hitting off a tee. Now he’ll be given a couple more days to heal and likely won’t try again until the Red Sox return home from Cleveland and are back at Fenway Park on Tuesday following Monday’s off day.
Tracy acknowledged that the recovery hasn’t gone as smoothly as expected, but emphasized that isn’t because of anything Anthony’s done wrong.
“That’s not Roman’s fault, it’s not anyone’s fault,” Tracy said. “It’s just he got hurt, and it’s a nagging injury on a hand when he’s trying to hit.”
Speaking to Rob Bradford on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast prior to Thursday’s game against the Atlanta Braves, Anthony clarified the exact nature of his injury, which was officially announced by the team as a right wrist sprain. Anthony said he has a partially torn ring finger ligament, specifically his ring finger CMC (carpometacarpal).
The sprain versus torn verbiage has generated some confusion among fans, though medically there isn’t a meaningful distinction between the two.
“I know stuff came out yesterday about tear versus sprain versus strain and all these different things, and I don’t know what to say other than any of those are a tear,” Tracy said. “You strain a hamstring and that’s a partial tear; fibers let go a little bit and they need to heal.
“I don’t think anything is portrayed differently or wrongly. If a guy strains his hamstring, I won’t come out here and say he tore his hamstring. That’s not how that works.”
Prior to suffering his injury, Anthony was batting .229 with one home run and a .675 OPS through his first 30 games this season.
Surprise: Another weekend and there’s more rain on the way. It’s bad enough we’ve had to post a First Alert.
For now, we’ll watch as clouds thicken today. We’ll squeeze out some drops later this afternoon and evening.
A weather maker is winding up in Canada, wrapping in cold air. All of that is going to dive down to New England.
We’re in the thick of it tomorrow. Rain will be coming at us in bursts with some dry time in between. Winds will likely push past 50 mph in Boston.
Those winds will eat away at temperatures; with wind chills barely above freezing. And no – not just in the morning – but the afternoon, too!
It’s so cold there’s the threat of snow as that rain bumps into colder air over the Berkshires, Worcester Hills and southern New Hampshire right up to Mount Washington.
The snow isn’t going to pile up but just know there could be some flakes flying over our highest hills.
The blue on our Futurecast map marks the spots where snow could mix with rain.
Rain spins out by Saturday evening but not before dumping about half an inch over Boston.
We’ll try to salvage the rest of the weekend with temperatures in the upper 60s by Sunday. Still, there’s the threat of bits and pieces of rain.
By the way, this isn’t any weekend, it’s the last weekend of spring. Meteorological summer starts on June 1.
The first day of summer remains drab and dreary with more rain chances and temperatures in the low 60 on Monday.
Federal immigration demands are once again centered on Massachusetts.
The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday sent three letters to Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins and Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden demanding, among other things, information on how many ICE detainers BPD has received and declined to honor from 2022 to 2026 and any communication between the three departments related to immigration.
House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said in a statement that “releasing repeat criminals back to the streets solely because of their immigration status is crazy, and that’s exactly what Boston is doing.”
But Democrats push back on that framing.
“You’re familiar with Jim Jordan and his antics,” said Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. “This is more circus, it’s more theater and it’s not making our community safe.”
A spokesperson for the City of Boston wrote, “the city has provided this information many times…” going on to say “…these policies are part of keeping Boston the safest major city in America.”
The letters call for the documents to be sent to the House Judiciary Committee by June 10th at 5:00 pm. District Attorney Hayden’s office told NBC 10 they are reviewing the letter, neither Commissioner Cox or Sheriff Tompkins responded to requests for comment.
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