On Sunday night, Miami was supposed to be the epicenter of a celebration of soccer that spread across the Americas as Argentina and Colombia battled it out in the Copa América final, the capstone of the highly anticipated three-week tournament. While Argentinians will probably remember Lautaro Martinez’s game-winning goal and Lionel Messi’s massively swollen ankle, those in attendance at Florida’s Hard Rock Stadium will remember crushing crowds, sweltering humidity and a demoralized walk away from stadium gates that only opened in fits and starts.
At least that’s how I’ll remember the night.
I was planning on attending the match as part of a Michelob Ultra media group, as the beer brand is a major sponsor of the Copa América and the upcoming 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted jointly by the U.S., Canada and Mexico. We arrived at the stadium around 5:30 p.m. for what was supposed to be a quick walk from the parking lot to our gate.
As we moved closer, the crowds swelled and our walk slowed to crawl. This is fairly normal for large sports events, but it quickly became clear things were anything but normal as our group began wandering halfway around the stadium. Throngs of fans were stuck as all of the gates remained closed. Word began to spread that something wasn’t right.
The general story was that a number of ticketed and non-ticketed fans had rushed stadium gates as soon as they opened. Staff at the doors couldn’t control the volume of people swarming in, so authorities decided to close all of the gates in order to stabilize the situation. Some fans had thrown rocks and other debris at gate officials, so an armed SWAT patrol came in to guard the doors. (As many as 7,000 people without tickets made their way into the stadium.)
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With a heat index hovering around 90°F, tens of thousands of fans were subsequently stuck around the stadium while the gates were closed. The situation quickly devolved into chaos with people jumping fences, hopping on top of ticket stands and even climbing through air ducts to get into the match.
All around me were cases of heat exhaustion, crying children and panicked confusion. While I was waiting in the thick of it, a teenage boy began to faint from the heat and his father screamed for help. The duo were ultimately ushered by the crowd up to the front so the boy could receive medical attention. Later, as I planned my own escape, I trailed an inconsolable young boy and his father as they tried to make their way out of the crowds where the boy had been seemingly pressed between people and injured.
Later on I saw videos, shared from others in my group, of one fan getting tased and another attempting to scale a canopy to get in but suffering a hard fall in the process. All of this was happening without any communication or updates from those in command.
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By about 7 p.m., it was clear my group wasn’t getting in, even as guests of one of North American soccer’s largest sponsors. We began wading our way through a sea of yellow and blue to get out to a guest area where we could wait out the mess and eventually return to our hotel. The significance of the situation came to light when we saw some senior Anheuser-Busch (Michelob’s parent company) staff in the media and guest zone. Even those at the highest levels of this pyramid either couldn’t get in or had simply given up trying. Kickoff had been delayed at least twice; after initially being set for 8 p.m., the match didn’t start until 9:22 p.m.
With the U.S. set to co-host the World Cup in just two years, this was about as bad as dress rehearsals get. The entirety of the 2024 Copa América, held across 14 cities throughout the country, was plagued with logistical issues, poor field conditions, a player-fan brawl and eye-watering ticket prices, and the chaos in Miami seemed to bring all of these together into one disastrous conclusion. Similar problems face the World Cup organizers, as the 2026 tournament will be larger than ever before, featuring 48 teams for the first time, up from 32, and run matches in stadiums that don’t typically use real grass but will do so for the event.
The Copa final was admittedly a perfect storm of diehard fan bases, featuring two South American teams in a region of the U.S. that more than 250,000 Colombians call home. It was Colombia’s first major final appearance since 2001, and throughout the weekend it was clear their numbers were growing quickly throughout the Miami area. This was in addition to an Argentine base that routinely shows up big wherever the team goes.
But this type of storm could happen anywhere across the U.S., Canada or Mexico in 2026. Letting potentially thousands of unscreened, non-ticketed people into a stadium is simply unacceptable, especially in a country that routinely hosts events of this nature. In 2016, the Copa América Centenario Final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey went off largely without a hitch, but U.S. officials had more of a role in planning that tournament. Blame for the debacle in Miami will almost certainly be placed on CONMEBOL, the South American soccer federation in charge of the tournament who decided to organize this on their own, but the optics of this happening in the U.S. aren’t great, no matter who was officially responsible.
After last night, the fan experience is sure to change for 2026. It has to. Beyond heightened security measures, I would hope FIFA, the World Cup organizer, takes a hard look at pricing, as many fans were simply priced out of attending even a single match, which may have contributed to a rush of people trying to force their way in without buying a seat. Further, Miami will be one of the host cities again, along with several other major metropolitan areas that have similar NFL-style venues; Hard Rock Stadium itself will host seven World Cup games, including the third place playoff match. No doubt the venue, city and local police will be looking at this failure as an example of how not to handle soccer’s biggest global tournament.
For most fans outside the U.S., soccer is the most intense of sporting environments, and especially contentious matches can — and will — boil over at a moment’s notice whether inside or outside the grounds. To host these tournaments, the U.S. needs to have a plan for the extremes of crowd control. CONMEBOL didn’t, and people got hurt because of it. There will certainly now be a microscope on the three host countries, and FIFA, as the 2026 World Cup rushes towards us.
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