England’s 2026 World Cup opener against Croatia lands in Dallas on Wednesday, and the question of when are england playing in the world cup now has a direct answer. The tournament started six days before England’s first match, so their campaign arrives later than most. That delay has not slowed the travel plans: fans are already heading for Texas in large numbers.
Dallas Stadium Awaits England
England will play Croatia at Dallas Stadium in their first match of the 2026 World Cup. The official England Supporters’ Travel Club has already sold its allocation of 4,022 tickets, while the United Kingdom Football Policing Unit expects between 12,000 and 15,000 England fans at each group-stage game.
That estimate points to a far bigger crowd than the club allocation alone suggests. Many supporters are making their own way to the United States without tickets, so the number on the ground in Dallas is expected to run well beyond the official sales figure.
Ticket Demand For Croatia
England fans have bought 89,000 World Cup tickets across all 104 matches, according to the United Kingdom Football Policing Unit. The Croatia game has also drawn clear demand at the point of sale, with tickets listed at £198, £373 or £523 when they went on sale for Wednesday’s opener.
Those prices do not stop at face value. Fifa’s official resale site adds 15% on top, and a few tickets have already appeared there at inflated prices. For supporters still trying to get in, that leaves a narrow and costly market around one match.
England Supporters Across Tournaments
The Dallas turnout sits between two very different reference points for England following abroad. In Germany in 2006, the United Kingdom Football Policing Unit estimated that 350,000 people made the trip, while only about 4,000 England fans are thought to have visited Qatar four years ago. The usual range for England fans at major tournaments is 20,000 to 30,000.
Those figures make the expected Dallas crowd look substantial without reaching the scale of Germany. They also show how much of England’s support base is prepared to travel again for a World Cup opener that has already pulled 4,022 official tickets and many more independent travelers into the same city.
