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The first semi-final of the FIFA World Cup 2026 takes place at AT&T Stadium (80,000 capacity) in Arlington on July 14, 2026, with kickoff at 2:00 PM CDT (UTC-5) as the winners of quarter-finals 1 and 2 compete for a place in the final.

Four teams remain in the World Cup. Two play today, two play tomorrow in Atlanta. The teams who walk out at AT&T Stadium on July 14 have won five matches to reach this point, each one an elimination fixture. The path from the group stage to a semi-final is not a progression through rounds: it is a sequence of five individual crises, each one fatal to the loser, each one absorbed and recovered from by the winner. Semi-finalists have that experience five times over. It changes the way teams carry themselves in the warm-up.

AT&T Stadium will host its fourth knockout match of the tournament today, having staged two rounds of 32 and a round of 16 before this. No other venue in the competition has hosted more knockout football. The stadium knows this stage by now: the retractable roof closed, the temperature managed, the giant video screen above the field carrying the faces of two nations' players to every corner of the arena. The largest video board in the world in one of the largest stadiums in the tournament.

When is this match? A 2:00 PM CDT kickoff means 8:00 PM BST in London, 9:00 PM CEST in Paris, 2:00 AM JST the following morning in Tokyo, 3:00 AM AEST in Sydney, 4:00 PM BRT in Sao Paulo, and 12:30 AM IST in Mumbai. European fans get a prime-time Tuesday evening semi-final. Check Dallas time for local scheduling.

July 14 is Bastille Day in France. Whether France is in this semi-final or not, the date belongs to the French national imagination. It is also 19 days after the first knockout match of the entire tournament, and only four teams are left. The tournament's attrition, 44 nations eliminated across six weeks of football, ends today with one more joining them.

The first semi-final of the 2026 World Cup: one team reaches the final, one goes to Miami for the third-place match, both are part of this tournament's permanent record.