World Cup 2023: Concerns Over MetLife Stadium Pitch

Adrien Rabiot walked off the MetLife Stadium turf with three points in his pocket and a grimace on his face.

France had opened their World Cup campaign with a 3-1 win over Senegal in New Jersey, but the Juventus midfielder’s thoughts were not on the scoreline or his assist for Bradley Barcola. They were on the ground beneath his boots.

“The pitch… I don’t even know if you can call it that,” the 31-year-old said. “It felt more like an artificial surface – quite hard and quite rigid.”

For a venue about to host the World Cup final, that is a damning verdict.

World Cup on a field under scrutiny

The New York New Jersey Stadium, better known as MetLife Stadium and usually home to the New York Giants and New York Jets, has long carried an uneasy reputation among NFL players. Its artificial turf has been blamed for a string of serious injuries, and the phrase “MetLife curse” has become part of the league’s vocabulary.

For the World Cup, the artificial surface has been ripped up and replaced with a temporary grass pitch. On paper, that solves the problem. Underfoot, it is telling a different story.

Rabiot, who played the full 90 minutes and set up France’s second goal, found little comfort in the switch. The ball bounced awkwardly. First touches looked heavy. Players checked their stride in areas where the grass seemed to sit on top of something less forgiving.

He is not alone.

Brazil forward Vinicius Junior had already sounded the alarm after his side’s 1-1 draw with Morocco at the same tournament, highlighting how quickly the surface deteriorates as the temperature rises.

“In the second half, with the heat, the pitch dries out very quickly. The game becomes very sluggish and we can't get into our rhythm,” Vinicius said.

Different teams. Different games. The same complaint.

A stage for the final, playing like a training ground

This is the stadium that will host England’s final group game against Panama on 27 June. It is also scheduled to stage the World Cup final on 19 July. The biggest night in international football may be decided on a surface that key players already distrust.

The figures underline the scale of the stage. MetLife holds 78,576 fans, a vast concrete bowl designed for the stop-start violence of the NFL. For football, the dimensions change but the foundations do not. Lay a temporary grass field over an artificial base and you create a hybrid reality: green to the eye, unforgiving to the joints.

Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers knows the risks of this stadium better than most. He tore his anterior cruciate ligament here in September, the latest high-profile victim of a pitch that has been under fire for years. That injury came on the artificial turf, not this temporary grass, but the stigma lingers. Players remember. So do their clubs.

Now, with the world watching, the complaints are coming from footballers instead of running backs and wide receivers.

A wider World Cup experiment

MetLife is not alone in this grand, uneasy experiment. Eight temporary grass pitches have been installed across 16 World Cup host venues, each trying to transform multi-purpose arenas into football-first stages for a month.

Boston Stadium, where Scotland opened their campaign with a tight 1-0 win over Haiti last week, is one of them. Scotland will return there for their second Group C match against Morocco on Friday (23:00 BST), hoping the surface holds up under repeated use and summer heat.

In New Jersey, the schedule will not relent either. Senegal are back at the venue on 22 June to face Norway, a match that will provide another test of how the pitch copes with quick turnarounds and heavy legs.

Teams will adapt. They always do. Shorter passes. Fewer risks in their own third. More time spent in warm-up working out how the ball behaves on contact.

But this is the World Cup, not a pre-season tour on a makeshift field.

France have already shown they can overcome the conditions, putting three past Senegal to start their campaign with authority. Yet Rabiot’s words hang over the place, a warning as the tournament’s biggest fixtures move closer.

If the surface at MetLife Stadium continues to play “more like an artificial” one, the question will not be whether players complain. It will be whether the pitch leaves its mark on the outcome of the World Cup itself.