dpThe 2026 World Cup semifinals feature four giants of international soccer and around $5billion worth of playing talent. They pit the world’s top-ranked team, France, against No. 3 Spain; and No. 2 Argentina against No. 4 England. Each matchup boasts megastars, such as Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal and Harry Kane; and looks, at first glance, like a red-hot ticket.
But in reality, one is much hotter than the other.
As of Sunday night, tickets to the second semifinal, England against Argentina, on Wednesday are selling for around twice as much as tickets to the first semifinal, France vs Spain, a day earlier.
The get-in price for England-Argentina — in other words, the cheapest ticket available — jumped to nearly $3,000 (£2,242) on resale sites Saturday night soon after the matchup was set.
The get-in for France-Spain, on the other hand, has continued to fall over the past week, from a high of more than $3,600 on July 4 to less than $1,400 (£1,046) on Sunday, per TicketData.com.
Listings on FIFA’s ticket platform tell a similar story.
Soccer’s global governing body, which runs the World Cup, released thousands of last-minute tickets for both semifinals over the weekend. By Sunday evening, all tickets to England-Argentina in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium — priced at $3,545 in category 1 — were sold out, whereas tickets to France-Spain at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, were plentifully available.
Ticket prices soar for England vs Argentina | World Cup Daily Briefing
Felipe Cardenas and Adam Jones
For France-Spain, there were more than 1,500 tickets still listed by FIFA across categories 1 and 2, for $3,710 and $2,705, respectively — despite that matchup being set over 24 hours earlier than England-Argentina was.
On FIFA’s resale platform, meanwhile, the cheapest available ticket in category 1 — which encompasses a stadium’s lower bowl and some or all 200-level (middle-tier) seats — was $1,600 for France-Spain as opposed to $3,611 for England-Argentina. In category 2, it was $1,265 for France-Spain vs. $2,645 for England-Argentina. And in category 3, it was $1,380 for France-Spain compared with England-Argentina’s $2,645.
On third-party resale site SeatGeek, too, the average sale price over the past seven days for that second semifinal in Atlanta has been around $1,000 higher than for the first near Dallas, a company spokesman told The Athletic.
Why the disparity?
Because the England-Argentina match feels like a bigger occasion.
It feels like more than merely a World Cup semifinal. It’s a once-in-a-generation meeting between two nations that share animosity and football lore; and the only chance to watch soccer’s greatest player, Messi, play against the country where the sport was invented.
After victory in the quarterfinals, Messi will now face the England national team for the first time. (Ryan Pierse – FIFA / FIFA via Getty Images)
Spain and France, on the other hand, are widely seen as the two best national teams in the game right now, but both have been here before and will almost certainly get here again.
They have reached a combined 11 major-tournament semifinals this century, and in that time, each has won at least one World Cup and one European Championship. They also meet somewhat regularly — including in the 2021 UEFA Nations League final and a Euro 2024 semifinal. There are aspects of Tuesday’s match that feel… ordinary.
There is also the expat factor.
Whereas there are millions of people living in the United States who were either born in England or have parents or grandparents who were, Spain in particular has a relatively small expat population here, and both it and France have a small one in Texas.
And although some fans from both Spain and France have traveled to North America for this World Cup, it would be prohibitively expensive to stay for more than a month. And there are barriers to a last-minute trip. There is only one nonstop, 10-hour flight from Paris to Dallas on Monday, and only one from Madrid — each priced at nearly $4,000 — compared with 3-5 per day from London to Atlanta.
And again, that first semifinal does not feel once-in-a-lifetime.
Supporters in Spain had a chance to watch Lamine Yamal and company win a European championship in Germany just two years ago. Their counterparts saw France win a World Cup on home soil in 1998 and another in Russia in 2018 and contest the 2022 final in Qatar.
England, on the contrary, has not been to a World Cup since its sole win in 1966, while twice finishing as runner-up at the Euros.
Spain and France played each other in the UEFA Nations League final a year ago. (Alex Grimm / Getty Images)
Argentina won four years ago in Qatar, but any chance to watch Messi on soccer’s biggest stage now feels precious.
He turned 39 years old during this tournament. As we are into the tournament’s knockout phase, every World Cup match he plays in could be his last. He has disciples in every corner of the world, from Buenos Aires to Bangladesh to Boise, Idaho, many willing to spend their life savings to see him in action.
Messi has pushed ticket prices skyward for all of Argentina’s matches in 2026, and earlier in the tournament, he was clearly the primary driver. But now, for the first time, he has an equally appealing opponent.
And the two countries have a history.
They have a sporting history that dates back to that 1966 World Cup, when England beat Argentina 1-0 in a quarterfinal sometimes referred to in the latter as “El robo del siglo” (“The theft of the century”, as they feel the winner was offside — it is not remembered that way in England, of course — en route to its one and only World Cup title. And they have a geopolitical history that mostly dates to 1982, when their militaries fought over the Falkland Islands.
The Malvinas, as the chain of islands in the South Atlantic a few hundred miles off its coast are known in Argentina, remain a point of pride for some Argentines. Walk around the country and you’ll occasionally see signs, graffiti or murals that read: “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” — “The Malvinas are Argentine” — despite the UK forces’ victory in the brutal 10-week war. In their now-famous soccer song, “Muchachos,” Argentine fans sing about “the boys from the Malvinas (war), whom I’ll never forget.”
The conflict added fuel to a footballing rivalry that had a resurgence at the 1986 World Cup, when Diego Maradona beat England in another last-eight meeting with his “Hand of God” handball goal and soon after what some view as the greatest goal of the century. Since then, there has been bitterness; bitterness that is now the subject of multiple Argentina national-team chants.
Minutes after the final whistle of their quarterfinal win over Switzerland later on Saturday, knowing England were waiting in this semifinal, Argentine fans broke into one of their favorites — “El que no salta es un inglés ”— a classic chant that urges everyone to bound up and down in place, and taunts those who don’t join in by calling them “an Englishman.”
A while later, on the exit ramps of Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, Argentine fans sang in Spanish: “England, England, you look so bitter. We’re getting closer and closer to seeing each other again.”
Wednesday, in other words, will be a day decades in the making, a day full of nationalistic intrigue and perhaps hostility. It will either send Messi to a third and likely last World Cup final, or take England to that stage for the first time in 60 years.
That’s why ticket prices for the match are creeping ever higher, and why fans are scrounging about for funds to get them in the building.
“I’d be incredibly grateful for any help,” one Argentina fan wrote to a WhatsApp group of fellow supporters, “to make this dream of seeing the match against England come true.”
