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The 2026 World Cup has not been without its controversies, but one in particular will remain a major talking point ahead of Sunday’s final between Argentina and Spain: the quality of the playing surface in New Jersey.

From day one of the tournament, the pitch at MetLife Stadium has been under scrutiny. Big names such as France’s Adrien Rabiot, Vinicius Junior of Brazil and Norway coach Stale Solbakken have all raised concerns about the playing surface. As Rabiot said bluntly, in an interview with the BBC: “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.”

After Brazil’s 1-1 draw with Morocco, Vinicius Jr told reporters: “With the heat, the pitch dries out very quickly. The game becomes very sluggish.”

But while concerns linger over whether the playing surface will have a negative impact on FIFA’s showpiece, many might be unaware of the serious challenges involved in ensuring there is a pitch to play on at all.

MetLife Stadium — which has a capacity of 78,576 and is normally home to both the New York Giants and New York Jets NFL franchises — was one of eight among the 16 World Cup venues across the United States, Canada and Mexico that required the laying a temporary grass pitch in a short space of time.

None of the other seven faced a challenge of the scale that confronted the stadium in Houston, Texas. That was the last of the eight grass pitches to be laid, barely 10 days before it hosted its first of seven fixtures, as Germany beat Curacao 7-1 on June 14.

Ethan Reed, the pitch performance manager at Premier League club Nottingham Forest, led the efforts to prepare the playing surface in Houston. He offers an insight into the kind of hurdles those at the eight stadiums that installed grass for the tournament had to overcome.

“The final whistle blew on the last game at Forest and the next day I was on a plane,” he tells The Athletic. “From that moment on it was 15-hour day after 15-hour day. The day I got there was the day of the turf install. We had the shortest window from turf installation to the first game of any of the stadiums.

“Houston was the last to install because of the rodeo. Everything works around the rodeo in Texas. The turf install was on May 27. By May 30 all the grass was down. Then the stitching machine came after that to weave artificial fibres through the whole pitch.”

There were more than 650 groundskeeping professionals involved in preparations across the 16 stadiums. But, with its retractable roof, there were different problems with which to contend in Houston — the home of the Houston Texans NFL franchise and RodeoHouston, the biggest rodeo event in the world — in comparison to places like New York, which were exposed to the elements.

“All the research that went into having the indoor venue worked for us,” says Reed. “There was a presentation before the tournament and I remember people saying: ‘Good luck to those working on the indoor venues’. But we actually had the resources to create the perfect environment. As long as we were doing the basics right — having the (UV) lights on as much as they needed to be, having the right airflow and keeping on top of the moisture management — it was probably easier.

“From what I have seen at the World Cup, the indoor venues were perhaps playing better than some of the outdoor ones because we were able to create the right environment. At the outdoor venues we have seen storms and other things that would impact on the playability. That is just something you cannot control.”

Does Reed believe that was part of the reason why there have been struggles in New York?

“I do not know about that, but every stadium will have its own challenges,” he says. “I do not know what resources they had — I am sure they did their very best. But I can talk about the challenges of getting a playing surface down in a short space of time.

“The grass for the indoor venues was a cool-season grass — very similar to what would be used at most stadiums in the UK and Europe.The grass was grown in Denver, Colorado. There were 24 lorries with 18 rolls of grass on each lorry. They were refrigerated to keep it cool. The grass was harvested at around midnight and then delivered early the next day.

“It would have taken two days to lay the pitch, but we found ourselves one truck short initially. There was a little strip of grass missing down the middle of the pitch. But thankfully that was filled in on the third day (when the truck arrived).”

The new turf settles in under UV lights at Houston’s NRG Stadium (Nottingham Forest/Ethan Reed)

As a teenager, Reed developed a love for mowing grass by tending the lawns of houses within a stone’s throw of Forest’s picturesque City Ground. It was the start of an unlikely journey that this summer, at 32, saw him preparing the playing surface upon which the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Vinicius Jr played in the World Cup as Houston hosted games involving Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands and the tournament’s surprise package, Cape Verde.

“If you told me a few years ago that I would prepare a pitch for the biggest tournament in the world…” says Reed. “It might have been (Cristiano) Ronaldo’s last dance with Portugal. Brazil played on it. It feels utterly bonkers. It is crazy to have gone from mowing lawns as a kid to this.”

But, even after the dash to ensure the pitch was ready for the start of the tournament, many fans will be unaware of the work that has gone into maintaining playing surfaces between matches.

“We got given the noon kick-offs in six out of the seven games,” he says. “It was a FIFA requirement that the pitch had to be signed off six hours before kick-off. It meant that we had to come in on the evening to mow and prepare goal-to-goal lengthways. Then return at 2am to mow widthways.

“Sometimes you honestly think you can feel the grass growing behind you. You would have a 2am start, going through until 5am, have a shower, a Chick-fil-A for breakfast, then back in. Match days could be a 2am to 5pm day and that was every three days.

“Was there pressure? Yeah, definitely. The world was watching and you had the best players in the world playing on it… but I really enjoyed the experience. It was a privilege.”

Ethan Reed mows the pitch at Houston’s NRG Stadium (Nottingham Forest/Ethan Reed)

Reed was denied the chance, though, to keep one particular souvenir.

“I cut out a piece of the turf and I had kept it alive in the apartment for the whole time,” he adds. “I wanted to bring it home. I thought I’d better check the customs regulations about bringing grass back — I had to leave that there.

“But I’d do it all again — once I have had a bit of rest.”