Eight nations are set to play at least one World Cup game in Foxborough in June, turning Gillette Stadium into one of the busiest stops in the region when the tournament reaches the Boston area. Three of those teams are ranked in the world’s top 10, and France, a two-time World Cup champion, is among the sides bringing the most pedigree to the venue.
For readers searching Gillette Stadium now, the reason is England. The team is scheduled to face Ghana in Foxborough on June 23, one step in a group schedule that also sends it against Croatia in Dallas on June 17 and Panama in East Rutherford, N.J., on June 27. That makes Foxborough the middle leg of England’s opening stretch, and one of the clearest dates on the local soccer calendar this June.
England arrives with numbers that would be hard to improve on. It qualified with an 8-0-0 record and a 22-0 goal differential, and it has not lost a World Cup qualifier since 2009. Since then, it has gone 31-0-8 in qualifiers with a 133-10 goal differential, a streak that stretches well beyond this campaign and explains why expectations around Gareth Southgate’s squad are so high even before the first ball is kicked in the group stage.
Harry Kane is one of the players who could be back on the World Cup stage this year, after appearing in England’s run to the 2018 semifinals. Jordan Pickford, Marcus Rashford and John Stones could also be part of the team again, giving England a familiar core as it tries to turn qualification dominance into a deeper tournament run.
That is where the history gets heavier. England won the 1966 World Cup at Wembley Stadium with a 4-2 extra-time victory over West Germany, and Geoff Hurst scored the first hat trick in World Cup history in that final. But the path after that has been uneven: a quarterfinal loss to West Germany in overtime in 1970 after leading by two goals, failures to qualify in 1974 and 1978, and then a long run of near misses that includes a semifinal defeat to West Germany on penalties in 1990 and the extra-time loss to Croatia in Moscow in 2018.
England’s current team has shown it can attack in more than one way, building through midfield while still carrying a direct threat. That mix is what makes its June 23 stop at Gillette Stadium more than a date on a schedule. It is one of the few places in the United States where fans will see a team with title history, a flawless qualifying campaign and a realistic chance to matter deep into the tournament before the month is over.
The unanswered part is how those top-10 teams will sort themselves once they reach Foxborough. What is already clear is that England’s visit comes at the center of a packed June for Gillette Stadium, and the local crowd will get one of the tournament’s most closely watched teams before the knockout rounds even begin.
