By Michael Church
DALLAS, July 12 (Reuters) – When France take on Spain with a place in the World Cup final at stake, the encounter is guaranteed to mark the end for one key participant in Tuesday’s match: the Dallas Stadium pitch.
It took five years of research to perfect the surfaces used across the tournament, and for the renowned stadium in Texas that involved cultivating a full-sized pitch on top of the field used by the Dallas Cowboys.
“What we’re doing here is hosting the biggest football tournament in the world, these are the best players in the world so we want to provide the best surfaces for them,” says Ian Craig, FIFA’s pitch manager for Dallas Stadium.
Turf scientists and groundskeepers worked with the University of Tennessee, Michigan State University and FIFA’s pitch management team to ensure the pitches used across all 16 venues plus the training sites at the first 48-team World Cup were consistent in terms of how the ball rolls and bounces.
“It’s not just about having green grass. We have to make sure that these pitches play the way that these elite-level players are used to, which is obviously where years of research and hard work have gone into,” Craig said.
Dallas, one of three indoor venues used, has presented unique challenges due to a lack of sunlight and the use of air-conditioning, meaning grass that is not native to Texas and can handle low temperatures had to be shipped in from Colorado.
Recently-installed grow lamps have been suspended from the roof of Dallas Stadium and are moved into position on non-match days to maintain a surface constructed above the artificial turf normally used by the Cowboys.
“We’re standing four-and-a-half feet above where the NFL field is, just in order to fit this within the stadium, but we have a full soil profile in there,” says Craig. “This is a full football pitch.
“This isn’t just a temporary installation. This is typical of what would be underneath a standard playing surface. We also have the hybrid elements, so it’s typical of what you would see at the elite level in Europe.”
After nine games in over four weeks, by the time either France or Spain have jetted off to New York to begin their preparations for the decider, Craig and his team will have begun dismantling the playing surface.
“This is a very, very busy stadium,” he says. “It has a lot of events, so this pitch has done what it was here to do, and it’s then on to concerts and the NFL again.”
(Reporting by Michael Church, Editing by Sonali Paul)
