The biggest match in world football began, for tens of thousands of supporters, in a queue. Fans arriving at New York New Jersey Stadium for the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina faced waits of around two hours to get through the gates, as security arrangements reshaped by the attendance of US President Donald Trump slowed entry to a crawl.
Queues of about two hours — with gates opened four hours before kick-off to absorb them.
Trump's presence at the 82,500-seat venue — the only World Cup match he is attending in person — meant the United States Secret Service assumed control of security for the game, with kick-off scheduled for 15:00 local time. Two layers of screening awaited supporters: one run by the Secret Service, the other by the Transportation Security Administration, the agency normally responsible for American airports. Fans and media alike passed through airport-style scanners to reach their seats.
The friction showed at the margins. One member of the media, having finally reached an entrance, was redirected to a different queue because no security dogs were available to search bags at that gate — a small illustration of a screening operation stretched by the scale of the event.
World Cup volunteers at the ground said the number of supporters arriving early was far greater than at any of the previous seven matches staged at the stadium during the tournament. Gates opened at 11:00 local time, four hours before kick-off, and additional gates were opened sporadically through the day as organisers tried to ease the congestion.
The early opening appeared to be a deliberate hedge: with every fan subject to double screening, the only variable organisers could control was time. Those who took the advice to arrive early were rewarded with a long wait inside the perimeter rather than outside it.
Despite the queues, organisers did not expect any delay to kick-off or wider disruption to the match itself. For the neutrals, the frustration at the gates was the price of a fixture worth queuing for: Spain, the European champions, against Lionel Messi's Argentina, defending champions chasing back-to-back titles — a final with history available to whichever side prevails.
Whatever happens on the pitch, the tournament's organisers will be grateful for one outcome already secured: the queues stayed outside the story of the final itself.
Host nations absorb a lesson at every World Cup, and America's is arriving early: the 2026 tournament's defining operational risk is not stadiums or transport but the collision between sporting schedules and presidential security doctrine. The Secret Service does not scale down for football. With the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028, how smoothly today's double-screening experiment runs will be studied well beyond FIFA — it is a dress rehearsal for a decade of American mega-events.
