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The 2026 FIFA World Cup has officially kicked off and with eight games total set for the NY-NJ area—including the big final, scheduled for Sunday, July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ—the roads leading to and from the city are going to get messy. Already, New Yorkers have spent weeks on the receiving end of advisories from Governor Sherril, Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani's offices about the gridlock days, work-from-home warnings and general transportation nightmares that await Tri-State football fans. So when I scored a ticket to this Tuesday's match-up between France and Senegal, my first thought was: "How the hell are we getting there?"
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I, like any good MetroCard-holding New Yorker, haven't driven a car in a solid 15 years. Public transit and my too-short legs are my primary modes of transportation. However, for my first-ever World Cup experience—hell, my first soccer experience in North America, full stop—I found myself going against my usual train-taking proclivities and opted instead for the bougie black-car route. Let's break it down.
The price
Chauffeured charters from midtown NYC to MetLife can cost $200 to $400 per hour, depending on the vehicle type and number of people riding. There's also the cost of parking; stadium lots are closed to the public, but you can pre-purchase an off-site parking pass (for designated locations like the American Dream mall and the Meadowlands racing complex) for $225 per spot. So cheap, it definitely ain't.
However, gathering a group (we had a half dozen fans in our vehicle) obviously splits the cost. And given that a round-trip rail ticket aboard the NJ transit alone costs nearly $100 during the tournament—not to mention the mere sight of the sweaty, tired masses lining up for block after block to catch the post-game train—balling out on a shared private car isn't as astronomical as one might assume. (And it goes without saying, but standard Uber rideshares would be a far more financially chaotic option, with massive price surges and stadium-specific fees, including a $60 postgame surcharge).
The pickup
Firstly, we avoided Penn Station like the plague and instead climbed aboard said shiny SUV down at the Ace Hotel on West 29th Street between Fifth and Sixth. And leaving early (12:30pm for a 3pm game) meant that it took an easy 35 minutes to get across the Manhattan island, over to New Jersey and into the stadium grounds.
The post-game exit
Now, not surprisingly, it took nearly twice as long to get back into the city after Les Bleus beat out Les Lions 3-1 in the group one game, a duration no doubt prolonged by the fact that the game wrapped around 5:30pm, a.k.a. the hellish center of weekday rush hour. With copious orange cones lining the roadways surrounding the stadium, it was a solid half hour of little to no movement to get away from the MetLife complex. But that brief bumper-to-bumper stoppage was spent alternating between snoozing and/or snacking in a comfortable, air-conditioned vehicle, so we won't be complaining one bit.
More than 80,000 delightfully rambunctious fans—many proudly waving Le Tricolore, others decked out in Senegalese yellow and green, and a passionate few sporting Mexico jerseys and oversized sombreros—attended Tuesday's game. Despite the sheer size and scope of the match, getting to and from MetLife for the 2026 World Cup was a pretty smooth and headache-free process...so long as you pay for it to be.