World Cup teams face major travel demands in tournament spread across US, Canada and Mexico

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) — The Czech Republic started its World Cup campaign by traveling from its base camp in Dallas across the border to Guadalajara in Mexico. The team is now back in Texas preparing for its next game in Atlanta. It will then return to Mexico for its third group match.

Newcomer Curacao is expected to travel some 5,300 miles (8,600 kilometers) back-and-forth from its base in Florida to games in Houston, Kansas City and Philadelphia. Bosnia-Herzegovina will rack up nearly 5,200 miles (8,400 kilometers) across Canada and the U.S. while going from its base in Utah to games in Toronto, Los Angeles and Seattle.

The biggest World Cup ever has brought some logistics challenges to the 48 teams in the tournament being played across three countries and four time zones.

“We just have to live with it because that’s what others planned for us,” Czech Republic coach Miroslav Koubek said through a translator after a 2-1 loss to South Korea in Guadalajara last Thursday. “We're happy to be here and we want to have the best possible results. Our logistics behind the scenes is good, but of course it’s not ideal that we have to travel that much.”

Turkey coach Vincenzo Montella said “this is the reality, we have to adapt.”

His squad trains in Arizona, about 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) from Vancouver, where it opened with a 2-0 loss to Australia.

“Of course after the match we’ll be back at 5 o’clock in the morning, and it’s not easy to recover, especially for people my age,” the 51-year-old Montella said through a translator ahead of the match. “After a night out you know it takes a few days to recover. America is big, Canada is very big. Mexico is big. We have to adapt. I know these things you can’t change. You can’t choose. You just have to adapt so you don’t have any excuses.”

Canada's squad had to fly nearly five hours to cover the more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) between Toronto and Vancouver after its opener. The U.S. team will travel nearly that distance in total while going back-and-forth between its training camp in Irvine, California, and its games in the Los Angeles area and Seattle. Mexico is expected to travel less than 600 miles (965 kilometers) within the country.

The England team is set to travel the most among the main title contenders, having its camp in Kansas City and playing games in Dallas, Boston and New York. Spain will have to fly nearly four hours from its base in Atlanta to a match in Guadalajara.

Argentina and France, the finalists at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, face fewer travel challenges. Argentina is based in Kansas City, where it will open its title defense before playing two matches in Dallas. France has its camp in Boston. It will play one game there and the other two in Philadelphia and New York.

FIFA has long recognized the logistic challenges for the World Cup scattered across North America. It tried to separate teams in geographical clusters where they are based and where they will play most of their matches.

Lengthy traveling was a non-issue at the previous World Cup in Qatar, which is roughly the size of Connecticut and is smaller than Switzerland. But teams faced similar travel challenges in 2018 in Russia and 2014 in Brazil.

South Korea's squad doesn’t have to leave Mexico for its group matches, but does have to deal with the high altitude both in Mexico City (about 2,200 meters, 7,200 feet) and Guadalajara (about 1,500 meters, 4,900 feet).

The South Koreans did specific training to adjust to the altitude, and coach Hong Myung-bo said it “helped a lot” but still wasn’t enough.

“In the second half, I think we could see that everyone was very tired,” Hong said after his team’s come-from-behind win over the Czech Republic.

Heat and humidity could also become an issue for many teams training and playing in U.S. cities such as Houston, Dallas, New York and Miami.

Brazil forward Vinícius Júnior complained of the conditions after the 1-1 draw with Morocco on Saturday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

“Because of the weather, the heat, the field dries up too quickly and the game gets really stuck and we can’t have game rhythm. That makes it difficult for us because we want to play, we want to move the ball from side to side, and that gets in the way of our game,” he said. “But we’re going to have to adapt because I believe it’s going to be like that for the whole competition where everyone is going to have the same field of play.”

AP Sports Writer Anne M. Peterson contributed from Vancouver.

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

South Korea head coach Hong Myung-bo, top left, celebrates with players and staff after the World Cup Group A soccer match between South Korea and Czechia in Zapopan, near Guadalajara, Mexico, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Brazil's Vinicius Junior (7) celebrates with teammate Bruno Guimaraes (8) after scoring during the World Cup Group C soccer match against Morocco in East Rutherford, N.J., near New York, Saturday, June 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)

Turkey head coach Vincenzo Montella walks off the field at the end of first half group D World Cup soccer action against Australia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Saturday, June 13, 2026. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

Miroslav Koubek, right, head coach of the Czechia men's national soccer team, poses for a selfie with a supporter during a public training session, Saturday, June 6, 2026, in Mansfield, Texas, ahead of the World Cup soccer tournament. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Czechia men's national soccer team head coach Miroslav Koubek, right, arrives with his team at Dallas Love Field Airport, Friday, June 5, 2026, in Dallas, ahead of the World Cup soccer tournament. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock markets rallied worldwide Monday, and oil prices eased after the United States and Iran reached a tentative deal to extend their ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to get the global flow of crude going again.

The S&P 500 rose 1.7% on hopes that this time, the announcement of an Iran-U.S. agreement will mean a long-term fix to a conflict that has worsened inflation around the world. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 468 points, or 0.9%, to a record, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 3.1%.

Stocks got a lift after the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil fell 4.8% to $83.17, back to where it was in early March. While that’s still above its price of roughly $70 from before the war, it’s lower than the $100 plus it cost just a few weeks ago. The hope is that lower oil prices will take pressure off households and businesses, which have had to pay higher prices for everything from food to fuel to fertilizer because of the war with Iran.

Iran confirmed the deal, but it does not include a final agreement on issues like Iran’s nuclear program. Negotiations on that are expected to continue over the next 60 days, which leaves opportunity for hiccups that could derail the agreement. And even if the Strait of Hormuz does fully reopen on Friday as expected, it will likely take months for the energy industry to get back to full speed.

For now, though, relief swept through financial markets worldwide.

On Wall Street, stocks of companies with big fuel bills were instant winners. United Airlines flew 3.9% higher, and cruise operator Royal Caribbean Group rose 6.6%.

Stocks of companies enmeshed in the artificial-intelligence industry also jumped. These stocks have yo-yoed in recent weeks, going from roaring to records to suddenly turning lower. The concern is whether such stocks shot too high, too fast because of AI mania, and their careening moves have sometimes reversed direction by the hour.

Micron Technology rallied 10.8%, and Advanced Micro Devices rose 7%. Nvidia’s climb of 3.5% was the strongest force pushing the S&P 500 upward because the AI chip company is Wall Street’s most valuable company, giving it more weight on the index than any other.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company that also owns the AI company xAI, rose 19.6% in its second day of trading on Wall Street. Its successful debut on the Nasdaq suggested plenty of demand still exists among investors for AI. The market has given SpaceX a total value of more than $2.1 trillion, making it bigger than Exxon Mobil, Bank of America and Coca-Cola combined.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased on hopes that lower oil prices will remove pressure on central banks to raise interest rates.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.47% from 4.48% late Friday.

Europe’s central bank last week became the first major one in the world to raise interest rates because of the war with Iran. High interest rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow economies and undercut prices for all kinds of investments, including stocks and cryptocurrencies. They hit investments seen as the most expensive in particular, and some critics are calling the AI industry a bubble where investment inflated too far.

The Fed will announce its latest decision on interest rates later this week, which will be the first under its new chair, Kevin Warsh. Traders see it as a near certainty that the Fed will leave its main interest rate steady after its two-day meeting ends Wednesday.

Traders had been raising bets that the Fed may have to raise interest rates this year because of how much inflation has accelerated and how solid the U.S. job market remains. But the tentative deal between the United States and Iran means traders are now betting on only a 57% chance of a hike this year, down from 71% a week ago, according to data from CME Group.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Roku fell 1.9% after the company announced that Fox Corp. is buying the streaming pioneer in a cash-and-stock deal valued at approximately $22 billion.

Roku’s stock had already soared 20% Friday, when media reports emerged about a deal, which will give Fox access to the Roku channel, first-party data and more than 100 million global streaming households. Fox’s stock fell 16.8%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 122.83 points to 7,554.29. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 468.77 to 51,671.03, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 795.10 to 26,683.94.

In stock markets abroad, indexes climbed in Asia and Europe. Japan’s Nikkei 225 leaped 5% for one of the world’s biggest gains and finished at a record.

“This is great news,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex. “Buying by foreign investors is leading the market with expectations of easing tensions around the situation in the Middle East.”

South Korea’s Kospi soared even more, 5.2%, thanks in part to continued rallies for AI winners like Samsung Electronics.

London’s FTSE 100 was an outlier and slipped 0.4%.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach and Senior Producer Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.

Options trader, and New York Knicks fan Ousama Fayek works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Options trader, and New York Knicks fan Ousama Fayek works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Daniel Kryger, left, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Patrick Casey works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Specialist Gregg Maloney works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Currency traders watch monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A dealer walks past a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)