{"id":3834,"date":"2026-06-18T00:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3834"},"modified":"2026-06-18T00:00:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:00:45","slug":"world-cup-2026-adrien-rabiot-raises-concerns-about-new-york-new-jersey-stadium-pitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3834","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Adrien Rabiot raises concerns about New York New Jersey Stadium pitch"},"content":{"rendered":"


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France midfielder Adrien Rabiot has raised concerns about the quality of the pitch at the New York New Jersey Stadium, describing it as “more like an artificial surface”.<\/b><\/p>\n

France started their World Cup campaign with a 3-1 win against Senegal<\/a> at the venue in New Jersey on Tuesday, which is home to NFL teams the New York Giants and Jets.<\/p>\n

Also known as the MetLife Stadium, it is due to host England’s final group game against Panama on 27 June, as well as the World Cup final on 19 July.<\/p>\n

Rabiot, 31, started and played the full match, assisting Bradley Barcola for the second goal, before criticising the pitch after France’s victory.<\/p>\n

“The pitch… I don’t even know if you can call it that. It felt more like an artificial surface – quite hard and quite rigid,” Rabiot said.<\/p>\n

Rabiot’s complaints echo Brazil forward Vinicius Junior, who cited the pitch’s dryness after his side’s 1-1 draw with Morocco<\/a> in their opening fixture.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

The 78,576-capacity stadium has had a temporary grass pitch installed for the World Cup in place of its artificial surface.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France midfielder Adrien Rabiot has raised concerns about the quality of the pitch at the New York New Jersey Stadium,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}