In the nine matches played at Dallas Stadium in Arlington, players and fans came from 15 countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Croatia, Egypt, England, France, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden. Soccer connects these diverse cultures and communities, and that’s also reflected in the official host city posters. FIFA asked each of the 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States to create a poster to showcase local artists and each city’s connection to this global sport. The Dallas host city poster design shows a cowboy kicking a soccer ball towards a city skyline. The winning entry came from Matt Cliff, an illustrator in Fort Worth. “I want them to understand, yes, cowboy culture is a part of DFW and the metroplex, and so is the modern age. We have an incredibly iconic skyline in Dallas, and you gotta figure out how to merge those things,” Cliff said. He submitted his design back in October 2024. He learned in January 2025 that his design had won. The big reveal then came in March, the last of the 16 host city posters to be debuted. “It was a lot of pressure I didn’t know I was under, ” Cliff said. “The night before the unveiling, I talked to my wife and said, ‘We should look up the other posters.’ She said, ‘Well, there’s hundreds of thousands of people looking at these other ones, and they’re anticipating the Dallas one.’ The next day, I was scheduled to speak for the unveiling in Dallas. And at that point, I realized there’s quite a few people with eyes on this.” Now, more than a year and a half later, Cliff is enjoying his place on the world stage, signing autographs, giving talks, seeing his work in the wild and how it impacts people. “I mainly work in my office and keep my nose to the grindstone, ” Cliff said. “When you’re a freelance artist, and I work mostly in the music industry, you’re building the staircase as you climb it. So it’s a different experience to be out with people. And it’s created an opportunity for me to meet people from around the world and interact with how people are interacting with my work, which is something I don’t usually get to do. It’s forced me to enjoy this experience more than I would in another opportunity.” Multiple companies got Matt’s design, and his art showed up on everything from beach towels to T-shirts to water bottles. He doesn’t get a penny from those sales but the payoff may be bigger. “When you design for a global audience, you kinda need to lean into the stereotypes, but they’re stereotypes for a reason,” he said. “There’s a reason why people think there are cowboys all over Texas because they kinda are. I went to a Sweden game, and everyone from Sweden was wearing cowboy hats. It was one of those situations where I was like, ‘OK.I think I got it right.’ And it resonated with the right people.” Cliff hopes his success inspires kids and others to go after something big. “This was something that I took a chance on, and it wound up being one of the biggest things in my career that I’ve ever worked on,” he said. ...read more read less