The 2026 FIFA World Cup matches are being played across the river in New Jersey. But the soul of the tournament, according to NPR, is riding the 7 train through Queens.
NPR published a piece Wednesday, June 11, framing the Queens corridor along the 7 line as something the MetLife Stadium schedule can’t replicate – a dense stretch of immigrant neighborhoods where soccer isn’t an event you watch once every four years. It’s daily life.
Queens and the game
Queens is one of the most ethnically varied counties in the country, home to communities from Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean – many of them places where the sport runs deep. The 7 train cuts through Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Corona, neighborhoods where storefronts, social clubs, and block parties have been organizing around the World Cup for months.
That context matters when the tournament actually arrives. New Jersey gets the stadium. Queens gets the street-level roar that goes with it.
NPR’s photo essay, shot by José A. Alvarado Jr., documents that culture without dressing it up. The images place soccer squarely inside the everyday texture of immigrant life in the borough – not as spectacle, but as something closer to infrastructure.
The 2026 tournament is jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The New York-New Jersey metro area is one of the host markets, with games scheduled at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. No Massachusetts venue is part of the host city group.
Still, the Queens angle carries weight for anyone following the tournament’s cultural footprint. The argument NPR is making – that the real World Cup party isn’t inside the stadium – isn’t new, but the 7 train gives it a specific geography. Fans from across the region have been boarding that line for years before a single match kicked off.
Whether the crowds along the 7 corridor hold up through the tournament’s later rounds, or whether the neighborhood energy gets swamped by the stadium-tourist machinery, isn’t something NPR’s piece answers. The matches in New Jersey are scheduled to run through the summer.
Reported by NPR. Read the original report.
