Dallas hosted World Cup matches in 1994 at the Cotton Bowl. Thirty-two years later, AT&T Stadium in Arlington — one of the largest stadiums in the world, with a capacity that can exceed 100,000 — takes over, with eight matches including a quarterfinal. Most people will not be inside the stadium. Tickets are expensive, demand is extreme, and getting to Arlington from central Dallas requires a car and some patience.
The good news is that DFW has one of the most underrated soccer bar scenes in the country. The city's football culture was built quietly — through supporters' clubs, immigrant communities, and decades of Premier League mornings. British pubs that open at dawn, a brewery owned by an Everton supporter, a Latin American neighborhood bar that turns matchday into a block party — Dallas has more range than it gets credit for.
The Londoner — Upper Greenville
5321 E Mockingbird Ln, Ste 250, Dallas, TX 75206
The Londoner is the bar every football city needs and most do not have. A proper British pub that opens at 6 AM on Saturdays and 7 AM on Sundays during the Premier League season, it treats early-morning kickoffs with the same seriousness as Saturday night fixtures. NBC Sports voted it the number one Premier League bar in the country, and the regulars would not argue. The decor is unambiguously English — flags, scarves, memorabilia — and the crowd reflects that: supporters' club members, expats, and Anglophiles who adopted a club and never let go.
There are three locations across DFW — Dallas, Addison, and Colleyville — but the Mockingbird Station venue is the one with the most energy on match mornings. During the World Cup, The Londoner will be the bar where people who already watch football every weekend go to watch football's biggest tournament. The fish and chips are correct. The pints are cold. The atmosphere, for a 6 AM kickoff in Texas, is genuinely difficult to believe until you experience it.
Peticolas Brewing — Design District
1301 Pace St, Dallas, TX 75207
The owner is an Everton supporter. The logo resembles a football club crest. The taproom hosts regular viewing parties for FC Dallas, the Premier League, and now the World Cup. Peticolas is also the home base of the Dallas Beer Guardians — FC Dallas's supporters' group — who have turned matchdays into a ritual involving beer, chanting, and a three-level layout that includes foosball, ping pong, and enough communal seating to accommodate the kind of crowd that stays for more than one match.
The beer is the reason you come back. Peticolas is one of the best craft breweries in Dallas, and the taproom functions as both a sports bar and a tasting room without either identity undermining the other. During the World Cup, expect full sound, full pours, and a crowd that skews younger and more diverse than the traditional British pub circuit.
Harwood Arms — Harwood District
2823 McKinnon St, Dallas, TX 75201
Harwood Arms is a British-style pub and the official home for many of Dallas's Chelsea FC supporters. The bar expects to show every World Cup match and is expanding its viewing capacity for the tournament — additional screens are being installed to handle the volume. The scotch and whiskey selection is extensive. The food — sausage rolls, shepherd's pie — is deliberately traditional. And the extended happy hour (11 AM to 7 PM on Fridays) suggests a bar that understands its World Cup audience will be arriving early and staying late.
For major fixtures, Harwood Arms hosts block parties — the kind of outdoor, street-level programming that turns a single-bar experience into a neighborhood event.
Frankie's Downtown
1303 Main St, Dallas, TX 75202
The default big-screen sports bar in downtown Dallas. More than 40 HD TVs, 20 Texas beers on tap, and a menu built around bar food done with regional swagger — the "hoodoo" fries with queso, poblano cream, pork belly, and sriracha, or the "Texican" quesadilla with smoked chicken and green chile cream sauce. Frankie's does not specialize in football. It specializes in showing every sport loudly, clearly, and with enough food and drink to keep you there for hours.
For the World Cup, Frankie's will be the bar where people who do not normally watch football discover that they enjoy it. That is not an insult. It is a compliment. The best World Cup bars are the ones where new fans are made.
Barra Libre — Oak Cliff
819 W Jefferson Blvd, Dallas, TX 75208
Oak Cliff is the neighborhood where Dallas's Latin American communities concentrate, and Barra Libre is where those communities watch football. The atmosphere on matchday — particularly for Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, or any Latin American national team — is not comparable to anything else in the city. Music, flags, cheering that begins before kickoff and does not stop at the final whistle.
This is not a polished sports bar. It is a community gathering point that happens to have TVs. The drinks are cold, the crowd is passionate, and the experience of watching a Mexico match here during the World Cup will be more memorable than most experiences available at a bar in Dallas. The neighborhood itself is worth exploring — Jefferson Boulevard has some of the best taquerias in North Texas.
Backyard — Deep Ellum
2610 Main St, Dallas, TX 75226
Deep Ellum has always preferred its sports with a side of noise, and Backyard was built for exactly that. The 12,500-square-foot venue combines massive LED screens, lawn games, cold beer, and enough open space to absorb the kind of crowd a World Cup match attracts. The whole thing is open-air and climate-controlled, which in a Dallas summer is the difference between staying for three hours and leaving after one.
The food is classic American, the cocktails are designed for volume rather than nuance, and the atmosphere treats sport as entertainment rather than devotion. For a 2 PM group-stage match on a Tuesday, Backyard is the bar that makes it feel like a weekend.
The match schedule
AT&T Stadium in Arlington hosts eight matches. The quarterfinal — the last knockout match at this venue — will draw a crowd that extends far beyond the stadium's walls. Every bar on this list will be full. The parking lots in Arlington will be full. The highways between Dallas and Arlington will be full. This is not a prediction. It is arithmetic.
Dallas was one of the cities that introduced the World Cup to a generation of American fans in 1994. Thirty-two years later, it returns on a scale almost impossible to imagine then. The stadium is bigger. The city is bigger. The tournament has twice as many teams. What has not changed is the part that matters: the bars will open early, the beer will be cold, and the people who care about football will find each other. On any given Saturday morning in Dallas, supporters of Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Club América, Monterrey, and FC Dallas can all be found watching matches within a few miles of one another. The World Cup simply puts them all in the same room.