The Santa Clara home of the San Francisco 49ers, at the southern end of the Bay Area, hosts six matches at the 2026 World Cup, climbing from five group games to a Round of 32 tie on 1 July in which the co-hosts USA beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-0. A modern, tech-forward arena with a natural-grass pitch and a long, hot South Bay summer. FIFA calls it San Francisco Bay Area Stadium during the tournament.
Levi's Stadium sits in Santa Clara, deep in Silicon Valley at the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay Area, closer to San Jose than to the city whose name it carries. Opened in 2014 as the home of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers, it is one of the most technology-forward stadiums in North American sport, and in 2026 it became one of 16 World Cup venues spread across the United States, Mexico and Canada.
The Bay Area hosts six matches: five in the group stage and one Round of 32 tie on 1 July, the deepest stage the venue reaches. Unlike the older, roofed arenas elsewhere on the schedule, Levi's is an open-air bowl exposed to the strong Northern California summer sun, and its afternoon and early-evening kick-offs were played in real heat.
Under FIFA's clean-venue sponsorship policy the ground is called San Francisco Bay Area Stadium during the tournament, because its commercial name, Levi's Stadium, belongs to a non-FIFA sponsor. For how it sits among all 16 venues, see our stadiums and host cities hub.
The biggest occasion of the Bay Area's World Cup was the Round of 32 tie on 1 July, and this one went the home crowd's way. Co-hosts United States controlled the game against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Edin Dzeko's side, seeing out a composed 2-0 win to reach the last 16 in front of a loud, red-white-and-blue Santa Clara crowd.
It was the deepest stage Levi's Stadium reached, and it set up a Round of 16 trip north for the United States. That is where the run ended: the Americans lost 4-1 to Belgium at Lumen Field in Seattle on 6 July. We picked apart the whole home campaign in our USA home advantage analysis, and the wider last-16 picture in our Round of 16 preview.
Levi's Stadium hosted five group-stage matches and one Round of 32 tie, six in total. Times below are local Pacific Time, on daylight saving through June and July.
| Match # | Date / Kickoff (local) | Fixture / Result | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Sat 13 Jun · 12:00 PM | Qatar 1-1 Switzerland | Group B |
| 20 | Tue 16 Jun · 9:00 PM | Austria 3-1 Jordan | Group J |
| 31 | Fri 19 Jun · 8:00 PM | Turkiye 0-1 Paraguay | Group D |
| 44 | Mon 22 Jun · 8:00 PM | Jordan 1-2 Algeria | Group J |
| 60 | Thu 25 Jun · 7:00 PM | Paraguay 0-0 Australia | Group D |
| 81 | Wed 1 Jul · 5:00 PM | United States 2-0 Bosnia and Herzegovina | Round of 32 |
Paraguay and Jordan each played twice in the Bay Area. Santa Clara also drew Qatar against Switzerland and Austria against Jordan in Group J, Turkiye, Paraguay and Australia in Group D, and Algeria's win over Jordan, before the co-hosts' knockout night. For the full grid in your own local time, use our schedule and calendar.
Levi's Stadium is an asymmetric open-air bowl, with a tall suite tower down one side and the lower general-admission stands opposite, designed by HNTB and opened in 2014 at a cost of around 1.3 billion dollars. It was one of the first stadiums built with sustainability and connectivity front of mind, earning LEED Gold certification.
The pitch was less of a headache here than at some venues. Levi's Stadium already plays on natural grass, one of the minority of NFL fields to do so, so a fresh grass surface was prepared for the World Cup rather than laid over artificial turf. The bigger factor was the weather: the open bowl offers little shade, and midday and afternoon kick-offs were contested in strong South Bay heat, a theme across the tournament that we covered in our heat and afternoon kick-offs piece.
The name says San Francisco, but the stadium is in Santa Clara, about 40 miles south of the city near San Jose. Plan the journey carefully: this is one of the harder venues to reach from downtown San Francisco.
Fans who treated Levi's Stadium as a Bay Area day out learned quickly that basing themselves in San Jose or Santa Clara, rather than the city of San Francisco, made the World Cup far easier. San Jose's downtown, the tech campuses of Silicon Valley and the neighbouring theme park gave the area plenty to do between matches, and the reliable Northern California summer weather made pre-match tailgates a pleasure. For those who wanted the city, San Francisco's cable cars, bay views and food scene were a train ride away on a non-matchday.
For other venues on the route to the trophy, see our SoFi Stadium guide in Los Angeles, the Lumen Field guide in Seattle, and the MetLife Stadium Final guide. The complete map is in our all-16-venues hub.
WorldCuply.com is the brandable .com for any 2026 World Cup brand, broadcaster, hospitality operator, fan media or marketplace. Live Unstoppable Domains pricing, transparent listing.