1H vs 2J

The Round of 32 returns to SoFi Stadium (70,240 capacity) in Inglewood on July 2, 2026, with kickoff at 12:00 PM PDT (UTC-7) as the winner of Group H faces the runner-up from Group J.

Group J contains Argentina as defending world champions. The runner-up from that group has competed directly with Argentina, beaten them or pushed them close enough to run second, and arrives here carrying that. There is no coaching session in the world that replaces the actual experience of playing against the reigning champions and surviving. Whoever runs second in Group J knows exactly how they did it.

SoFi Stadium hosted the 1994 World Cup in a different form: the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, 20 kilometres northeast of Inglewood, was where Brazil beat Italy on penalties to become four-time champions. Roberto Baggio’s penalty sailed over the crossbar and ended Italy’s tournament and the 1994 World Cup in the same moment. Group J’s runner-up today will be thinking about how to avoid their own Baggio moment in the rounds ahead, not about that. But SoFi Stadium exists in the same football geography as the most famous miss in World Cup final history.

When is this match? A noon PDT kickoff means 8:00 PM BST in London, 9:00 PM CEST in Paris and Madrid, 4:00 AM JST the following morning in Tokyo, 5:00 AM AEST in Sydney, 4:00 PM BRT in Sao Paulo and Montevideo, and 12:30 AM IST in Mumbai. European viewers get a Thursday prime-time match. Check Los Angeles time for local scheduling.

Group H features Spain, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, and Cape Verde. The Group H winner has beaten or outrun at least two former World Cup winners in their group. They come to Los Angeles with that on their resume. The Group J runner-up comes with something different: the knowledge of what it took to stay in the tournament when the defending champions were in the same group.

Both of those things are useful in knockout football. Ninety minutes to find out which is more useful today.

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