If they can take care of the world’s best ‘football’ players when they play in New Jersey, they can do what’s best for the world’s best American football players, too.

FIFA announced on Sunday that MetLife Stadium will host eight matches during the 2026 World Cup tournament, headlined by the World Cup Final on July 19.

The turf pitch will be converted to grass for the World Cup games to meet FIFA’s standards. That costs money.

The stadium is using $400,000 in funds from the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority — which owns the lease on the stadium’s land — to turn the field to grass for this summer’s Copa America games, per The Athletic.

Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch, and Jets owner Woody Johnson, would have to foot a big bill to convert their surface to grass and maintain it.

But a slightly improved bottom line for billionaires and millionaires should not take priority over the safety of the players who bring those dollars in with their talents and hard work.

The NFL players’ union has called for all teams to switch permanently to grass in their stadiums, citing data that it makes the game safer. The league, naturally, occasionally finds its own selective data to push back.

Still, there is no regional argument for why a grass field couldn’t be maintained in New Jersey when the Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders all play on grass in the Northeast already.

If it saved even one ACL or Achilles, it would be worth it.

Mara, to his credit, said last March that he hopes to move to grass permanently one day at the Giants’ and Jets’ home stadium.

“It would have to go down for the World Cup,” Mara said last March of grass at MetLife. “My hope is that we can get to a day some point in the future that we can have a grass field that we’re able to maintain with two different teams and all the other events. I think we can get there at some point. Maybe it’s a hybrid product or something.”

The Giants and Jets installed a new “monofilament” turf at last offseason in response to harsh criticism from the union and players around the league, including some of their own, about their previous “slit film” turf’s connection to frequent player injuries.

Players were included in the conversations about which new turf the teams should install, and the change represented progress. But players have still complained.

Houston Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud said after suffering a concussion in a road loss against the Jets that he “hit the back of my head” on the ground and it felt like “I damn near hit my head on cement, kind of. It was cold, and the turf I guess isn’t the best I’ve learned.”

At the old Giants Stadium, they once switched from the infamous AstroTurf to a grass tray system in 2000, but the field quality was still poor and that led to the installation of a different field turf in 2003.

More than 20 years have passed, though. There is a reason the best soccer players in the world play on grass only in the World Cup.

And frankly, when the NFL’s experts are traveling internationally for their collaborative summits with these international ‘football’ leagues and stadiums, they should be harnessing new knowledge on how to maintain grass back home as they do overseas.

The planned installation of grass for the 2026 World Cup is a reminder that they’ll put grass down in MetLife Stadium when provided with enough incentive.

So if they’ll do it for Kylian Mbappe, Kevin De Bruyne, Marcus Rashford and Jamal Musiala, they can do it for the Giants’ Dexter Lawrence, the Jets’ Garrett Wilson and the NFL’s players, too.

While in competition with the AT&T Stadium inn Arlington, Tex., the home of the Giants and Jets promised to remove 1,740 seats to accommodate a wider field for the beautiful game, the Daily News previously reported.

MetLife Stadium would re-add the vacated seats following the World Cup as parts of removable sections.

“In many ways, we’ve got the whole world right in our backyard with more than 600 languages and dialects spoken across our region,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. “There is nowhere that better captures the breadth and diversity of the world’s greatest game than New York City and our great Garden State.”

The final match will be held on July 19, 2026 in the East Rutherford, N.J., stadium.

“As mayor of the most diverse city in the United States, a city filled with soccer fans, we cannot wait to welcome the world for the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a joint statement with Murphy.

The massive tournament spans 16 locations across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with Dallas hosting nine matches.

The event will officially kick off on June 11, 2026 in Mexico City’s new, high-tech Estadio Azteca. The United States’s opening match with be held in Los Angeles on June 12, FIFA said in a post on X.

The bronze medal final will take place in Miami and the semi-final games will take place in Atlanta and Dallas, according to FIFA.

Signing a multi-year contract with Gotham FC this offseason offered the decorated World Cup champion an opportunity to compete for her fourth National Women’s Soccer League title.

Just as importantly, it gave her a chance to come back home.

Dunn, 31, was born in New Hyde Park on Long Island and grew up in nearby Rockville Centre, where she captained the South Side High School soccer team and won state championships in 2006, 2007 and 2009.

Those titles were just the start for a player who has won nearly everywhere she’s gone since. Now entering her 10th NWSL season, Dunn boasts an MVP trophy she earned in 2015 with the Washington Spirit; back-to-back championships with the North Carolina Courage in 2018 and 2019; and an additional title with the Portland Thorns in 2022.

Dunn was also part of the U.S. Women’s National Team that won the World Cup in 2019, appearing in six games. She competed as well in the 2023 World Cup and in two Olympics.

Through it all, Dunn remained true to New York.

“When people see New York, it’s so easy to get caught up in the fame, the access to all these high-stage, high-spotlight moments,” Dunn said Friday following an introductory press conference at Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room. “But to me, being a New Yorker was always about the grind. It was about the ailments that were thrown your way that you had to battle through and face. That’s my mentality as a player.”

Dunn’s latest challenge is suiting up for a retooled Gotham club that enters the 2024 season with sky-high expectations. Fresh off the franchise’s first-ever NWSL championship in November, Gotham added four staples of the USWNT in Dunn, Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and Tierna Davidson.

The big-name quartet joins a team already featuring USWNT members including Lynn Williams and Kelley O’Hara, who were also part of the 2023 World Cup roster.

All of that star power on one club invited mentions of a possible “superteam.” Dunn, who spent the past three seasons with Portland, is aware of that buzz.

“All this hype about us coming in is amazing, but I also think we’ve got pressure on us, which is an incredible feeling,” Dunn said. “Pressure creates diamonds, and I think you’ve got to embrace it. You can’t shy away from it, but it all starts with … getting to work.”

The 5-1 Dunn, whose deal runs through 2026, brings rare versatility to Gotham. A goal-scoring midfielder and forward by trade, Dunn has primarily played as a defender with the USWNT.

Her new coach, Gotham’s Juan Carlos Amoros, describes Dunn as “very special on and off the ball.”

“She’s exciting,” Amoros said Friday. “She’s very versatile as well, can play different positions, and she’s also a leader.”

She’s also a mother, having welcomed her first child in 2022. The chance to raise her son in her native New York proved to be a massive draw for Dunn, who acknowledges it felt “amazing” to be wanted by her hometown team.

Gotham’s pursuit of Dunn played out separately from those of Lavelle, Sonnett and Davidson, though all four entered free agency looking for the same things, general manager Yael Averbuch said Friday.

“We always started the conversation with asking them what they’re looking for in the next phase of their career,” said Averbuch, a former player who, like Dunn, hails from Long Island. “Every single person who we brought to the club said something similar. They said, ‘I want to win. I want to get better, I don’t feel like I’ve met my potential and I want to be around other people that share that mindset.’ The second they said any version of that, I felt pretty confident. I knew they should choose Gotham.”

Dunn’s addition to Gotham represents a testament to the organization’s turnaround in recent years.

Before 2023, the club endured losing seasons in six of the past seven years, including in 2022, when it finished in last place at 4-1-17. Before moving in 2020 to the spacious Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., Gotham played its home games at Rutgers University’s Yurcak Field, which seats only 5,000 people on a single grandstand.

“People need to realize the New York area is a tough market,” Dunn said. “There’s not a lot of space. There’s not always an easy stadium to have and to build on. From afar, it always looked like there was passion behind growing this club in this area, but there were always challenges. I think the last couple of years, getting so many people in this organization to have that vision and have that guideline, has been able to put that team on the map and make it so much more accessible for people to be able to come and see these games.”

Attracting larger crowds to Red Bull Arena is a priority for Dunn, who urged her fellow New Yorkers — including those on Long Island — to show up for her new club. Gotham averaged around 6,300 fans at home games last season. Dunn’s previous team averaged about 19,000 fans at its games in Portland.

Gotham is set to host the league’s season opener on March 15 against San Diego Wave FC in the NWSL Challenge Cup.

With Friday’s team introduction behind her, Dunn is eager to get going.

“I’ve been highly successful in my career, but every year I’ve got to upgrade the résumé,” Dunn said. “It’s not about what I did five years ago, even last season. It’s about what I’m presently here to do and take on, and I think that’s really important that people hear that from me, as somebody that is a leader, as somebody that has achieved a lot.

“If I’m not showing up … and competing to fight to be the best player out there, how can I demand that from my teammates?” she continued. “I think that’s really something that New York has instilled in me, that you’ve got to work for everything.”

Gotham FC, the defending champions of the National Women’s Soccer League, followed up its first-ever NWSL title in the fall with a franchise-altering offseason, adding four star players in Crystal Dunn, Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and Tierna Davidson.

Their arrivals give Gotham four more staples of the U.S. Women’s National Team who further bolster a roster already featuring standouts in Lynn Williams, Kelley O’Hara, Midge Purce and Jenna Nighswonger.

Expectations are understandably high for such a loaded lineup — and that’s exactly how general manager Yael Averbuch wants them.

“We want this type of attention,” Averbuch, who was born in New York and grew up in Montclair, N.J., said Friday at Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room, where Gotham officially introduced its new big-name quartet.

“I’m from this area of the country, and we really want to embody the New Jersey/New York mindset, which is [that] we want to be the best and we want other people chasing us. We want that target on our back.”

The busy offseason aligns with Averbuch’s mission, as she described Friday, to turn Gotham into the “global capital of women’s soccer.” The 2023 season ended with a championship but still left room for improvement in the eyes of Averbuch and coach Juan Carlos Amoros, considering Gotham finished the regular season sixth out of the league’s 12 teams with an 8-7-7 record.

Enter the new additions.

The multi-positional Dunn, 31, is a Long Island native who won NWSL MVP honors in 2015 and boasts three league championships, most recently in 2022 with Portland Thorns FC.

The midfielders Lavelle, 28, and Sonnett, 30, come over from Seattle Reign FC, which lost to Gotham, 2-1, in November’s NWSL final. Davidson, a 25-year-old defender, spent the past five years with the Chicago Red Stars.

All four were members of the USWNT roster that won the 2019 World Cup and the bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics. Dunn, Lavelle and Sonnett returned for the 2023 World Cup, while Davidson did not after tearing her ACL the previous year.

Gotham veterans Williams and O’Hara were also part of that 2023 World Cup club, which failed to medal.

“It’s always exciting to be on a team with a lot of great winners,” Lavelle said Friday.

“It’s an amazing roster before we even got here and we’re excited to add to that, but nothing’s given. Everything’s earned. I know people are saying ‘super team,’ but we still have to show up and put in the work and put the product on the field.”

Despite their USWNT ties, Dunn, Lavelle, Sonnett and Davidson didn’t decide together to join Gotham. The pursuits played out separately, with each determining New York gave them the best chances to win and grow.

“Each of us chose this club, not necessarily for different reasons, but … we went through our own separate, individual processes of what mattered most to us as players at this stage in our careers,” Dunn said Friday.

“For me, I speak a lot about family. Now, being a mom [to a 1-year-old son], there’s a lot of things that play into happiness, not really on the field, but off the field. Being supported as a player, being valued as a player, is what I felt from this club.”

That Gotham stood out as a desirable destination is a testament to the organization’s recent turnaround, much of which came under Averbuch, a former professional player who took over as general manager in 2021.

Originally known as Jersey Sky Blue and later as Sky Blue FC, the club spent years playing at Rutgers University’s Yurcak Field, a modest 5,000-seat venue with a single set of bleachers. Gotham started playing at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J. — a 25,000-seat venue more befitting of a professional team — in 2020.

Gotham finished 2022 in last place with a 4-1-17 record, during which it fired coach Scott Parkinson. The team had losing records in five of the previous six seasons as well.

Averbuch hired Amoros, the longtime coach of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club Women, before the 2023 season and immediately reached the NWSL pinnacle.

Now, Gotham enters the 2024 campaign with an entirely different level of pressure.

“Having so many incredible players, it doesn’t come easy,” Sonnet said Friday. “You have to train. You have to have the same mentality.

“How can you do the game plan that the coach wants to? Can you guys all do it? [That is] probably the biggest thing we all have to come over,” she said. “People probably look at ‘super team.’ … But it’s really, can you come in and can you train every day, and can you take what Juan wants and apply it to the games?”

Adding star power to the country’s biggest market presents an exciting opportunity to bring attention to the NWSL, which launched in 2012 in place of the Women’s Professional Soccer league and the Women’s United Soccer Association before that.

Uncertainty that once swirled around the current league’s future largely eased after the league’s first Collective Bargaining Agreement came together in early 2022. Months later, the NWSL opened its first-ever free agency period.

“The CBA forever changed the trajectory of women’s soccer in this country,” Averbuch said. “I truly believe until that point, there was always the conversation of, ‘Will there be a league? How do we plan, because is this going to be here? Will all these teams be here?’

“I think at the point at which the CBA was signed, combined with the great momentum surrounding the women’s game and everybody starting to finally see it as the opportunity that it is, I think we’ve hit a new level of stability where people can actually aggressively grow.”

Fresh off its first title, Gotham is set to open the 2024 season on March 15 by hosting San Diego Wave FC in the NWSL Challenge Cup.

Gotham averaged about 6,300 fans at home games last season. That paled in comparison to top-drawing clubs such as San Diego and Angel City FC, which both averaged around 20,000.

In order to continue to break through in a New York market filled with popular professional teams, Gotham must keep progressing on the field, according to Averbuch.

“We need to keep showing an exciting product on the field and winning games,” Averbuch said. “That’s something we are [in] the very early stages of what we’re doing. It’s really amazing to have these landmark moments to celebrate, but that’s something we’re building day in and day out. … I’m really mostly excited for people to come watch us and then to want to come back.”

Organizers behind the home of the Giants and Jets intend to remove 1,740 seats in order to facilitate a wider field for FIFA’s global men’s soccer tournament. The seats are set to be removed from the corners of the venue in East Rutherford, N.J.

MetLife Stadium is competing with the similarly sprawling AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to host the World Cup final on July 19, 2026.

“The FIFA setback provisions really impact MetLife only at the corners,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told The Associated Press.

“Other stadiums have a much tougher nut where they have to set the entire perimeter back. FIFA wants a deal that works for them. New Jersey and New York City — remember our partners New York City — we’re prepared clearly to put serious skin in the game. In fact, we have already.”

Under the current plan, MetLife Stadium — which welcomed more than 83,000 fans for the Giants vs. Jets game last year — would re-add the vacated seats following the World Cup as parts of removable sections.

Officials responsible for AT&T Stadium, which is home to the Dallas Cowboys, have not said how they would accommodate any potential needs to update that venue’s dimensions.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are hosting the 2026 World Cup, marking the second time the men’s tournament will be played in the U.S. The 1994 final took place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

“I speak on behalf of New Jersey but also as our partner of New York City, do not underestimate how aggressive we’re prepared to be to get the best package of games possible,” Murphy told The AP.

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Prosecutors say Brooklyn Federal Judge Pamela Chen got it wrong in September when she cleared Hernan Lopez, the former chief executive officer of Fox International Channels, and co-defendant Full Play sports marketing.

A jury convicted Lopez and Full Play after a seven-week-long trial in March 2023, finding them guilty of wire fraud and money laundering charges for taking part in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme to secure broadcasting rights from FIFA for South American soccer matches.

Chen’s decision to overturn the convictions cited the U.S. Supreme Court case of Joseph Percoco, one-time top aide to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was cleared on a conviction for accepting a bribe while working on the governor’s campaign.

The Supreme Court ruled that jury instructions in the case failed to properly address the fact that Percoco was not on the state payroll at the time of the alleged crime.

Chen wrote “that in light of Percoco, the evidence at trial was insufficient to sustain defendants’ honest services wire fraud convictions … because the statute does not apply to foreign commercial bribery schemes.”

In a 101-page filing Tuesday to the Manhattan-based 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Busa argued that Chen “misread” the Percoco ruling and another 2023 Supreme Court decision that narrows what can be charged as federal wire fraud. In that case, the court unanimously overturned the bid-rigging conviction of Buffalo developer Louis Ciminelli.

, In this courtroom sketch, former Fox executive Carlos Martinez, far left, sits next to his defense attorneys in Brooklyn federal court in January 2023. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)”Neither Ciminelli nor Percoco says anything about foreign bribery or commercial bribery (let alone the court’s new and sweeping concept of ‘foreign commercial bribery’),” Busa wrote.

Lopez and his co-defendants were charged with participating in an “intricate scheme to pay bribes and kickbacks” in return for landing marketing and broadcasting rights for regional soccer tournaments. The jury acquitted a third defendant, ex-Fox executive Carlos Martinez.

The prosecution was part of a long-running corruption probe surrounding FIFA, the world governing body for soccer.

“We are confident the Court of Appeals will sustain Judge Chen’s well-reasoned ruling,” Full Play’s lawyer Carlos Ortiz said Wednesday. Attorney John Gleeson, who represented Lopez, declined comment.

SAN DIEGO — World Cup winner Esther González scored the go-ahead goal on a header in first-half stoppage time and Gotham FC survived a wild finish to beat OL Reign 2-1 on Saturday night in a National Women’s Soccer League championship match that was in its first few minutes when Megan Rapinoe hobbled off the pitch in a heartbreaking end to her career.

Following a VAR review in stoppage time, Gotham goalie Mandy Haught was issued a red card for denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and sent off, giving the Reign a chance to tie it. With defender Nealy Martin taking over in goal, the Reign’s Rose Lavelle took a free kick just outside the box but it bounced off a Gotham player along the wall. Gotham was able to run out the clock and marked its first NWSL title with a wild celebration near midfield.

The non-contact injury to Reign star Rapinoe took some of the wind out of the crowd at San Diego State’s Snapdragon Stadium. The match had been billed as a showdown between Rapinoe and Gotham’s Ali Krieger, both of whom were looking for their first NWSL title before retiring.

Rapinoe broke toward Maitane Lopez of Gotham, who was dribbling outside the penalty area, and suddenly went down in the third minute. After staying on the ground for a few minutes, Rapinoe needed help from two trainers for the long walk along one end line and then down the sideline to the Reign’s bench.

Krieger ran over and hugged her former teammate from the U.S. Women’s National Team.

There was no immediate word about the severity of Rapinoe’s injury.

Rapinoe announced before this summer’s Women’s World Cup that she was stepping away from the game after a career that included two World Cup titles, an Olympic gold medal and an Olympic bronze.

The field at Snapdragon appeared in better shape than it was on Sunday night, when the Reign beat the San Diego Wave to advance, some 24 hours after a home San Diego State football game. Still, there were several areas where the grass remained chewed up.

With the score tied at 1 in stoppage time, González, who helped Spain win the Women’s World Cup, slipped between two defenders and headed a perfect corner kick by Midge Purce into the corner of the net out of the reach of Reign goalie Claudia Dickey.

Purce also fed Lynn Williams in front of the net for the opening goal in the 24th minute.

The Reign tied it in the 29th minute when Lavelle dribbled in and beat Haught.

FIFA still must rubber-stamp the Saudi bid at a meeting next year, but there will be little drama with only one option on the table.

The 2034 tournament will likely take place in November and December of that year to avoid scorching Saudi summers. The 2022 World Cup in Qatar was similarly moved to the middle of the European club soccer season.

Human rights organizations slammed the Saudi World Cup, pointing out the kingdom’s treatment of women and the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Thousands of migrant workers died in Qatar building the infrastructure for last year’s tournament, and there were immediate concerns that tragedy would be repeated.

“With Saudi Arabia’s estimated 13.4 million migrant workers, inadequate labor and heat protections and no unions, no independent human rights monitors, and no press freedom, there is every reason to fear for the lives of those who would build and service stadiums, transit, hotels, and other hosting infrastructure in Saudi Arabia,” Human Rights Watch director of global initiatives Minky Worden said in statement.

FIFA was criticized for appearing to steer the process in Saudi Arabia’s favor. The organization’s president, Gianni Infantino, has close ties with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After FIFA picked the 2030 hosts earlier this month, it fast-tracked 2034 bidding and limited it to countries in the Asian Football Confederation, which includes Australia.

Australian soccer federation leader James Johnson called the sped-up process “a little bit of a surprise.” Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, was clearly prepared and quickly submitted its bid.

The 2034 World Cup represents the culmination of Saudi Arabia’s years-long plan to be a major player in worldwide sports. The kingdom started a rival golf league, purchased English soccer club Newcastle and signed numerous superstar players to its domestic soccer league in recent years.

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Rubiales, 46, is barred from participating in “all football-related activities at national and international levels” during that time, which includes the 2026 Men’s World Cup in North America.

“FIFA reiterates its absolute commitment to respecting and protecting the integrity of all people and ensuring that the basic rules of decent conduct are upheld,” the international governing body said in a statement.

WWCup Spain England Soccer

Rubiales obstinately refused to admit he did anything wrong in the weeks following the World Cup, and FIFA rules allow him to appeal the decision. He did not respond publicly on Monday.

FIFA had provisionally suspended Rubiales for 90 days while the organization investigated his actions on Aug. 20 following Spain’s 1-0 defeat of England in the World Cup final.

The probe centered on three incidents: Rubiales’ forced kiss of star Spanish player Jenni Hermoso, his crotch grab in front of Queen Letizia of Spain and 16-year-old Princess Sofía, and his carrying of Spanish player Athenea del Castillo over his shoulder during the celebration.

FIFA said Rubiales violated article 13 of its disciplinary code, which includes penalties for wide-ranging offenses such as “violating the basic rules of decent conduct” and “behaving in a way that brings the sport of football and/or FIFA into disrepute.”

Following three weeks of intense criticism, marked by a defiant hunger strike by his mother and a fiery “I’m not going anywhere” speech, Rubiales was forced to step down as president of the Spanish soccer federation on Sept. 10.

A statement from Charlton’s family, released by United, said he died Saturday surrounded by his family.

An extravagantly gifted midfielder with a ferocious shot, Charlton was the leading scorer for both United (249 goals) and England (49 goals) for more than 40 years until being overtaken by Wayne Rooney.

“Sir Bobby was a hero to millions, not just in Manchester, or the United Kingdom, but wherever football is played around the world,” United said.

“He was admired as much for his sportsmanship and integrity as he was for his outstanding qualities as a footballer; Sir Bobby will always be remembered as a giant of the game.”

Alex Ferguson, who managed United from 1986-2013, said before Charlton’s death that he “is the greatest Manchester United player of all time — and that’s saying something.”

“Bobby Charlton is absolutely without peer in the history of the English game,” Ferguson said.

Charlton was also renowned for his humility, discipline and sportsmanship. He was never sent off in 758 appearances for United from 1956-73 or 106 internationals for England from 1958-70.

Charlton played with George Best and Denis Law in the so-called “Trinity” that led United to the 1968 European Cup after surviving the 1958 Munich crash that wiped out the celebrated “Busby Babes” team. He won three English league titles at United, and one FA Cup.

“For a footballer, he offered an unparalleled combination of grace, power and precision,” said former United defender Bill Foulkes, another survivor of the Munich air crash.

“It added up to a greatness and something more — something I can only call beauty.”

Charlton’s England scoring record stood for 45 years until Rooney scored his 50th goal for the national team in September 2015. Three of his England goals came in the World Cup in 1966, during which Charlton played every minute for the team and stood out especially in the semifinals when he scored twice against Portugal to lead England to a first major final.

England beat West Germany 4-2 after extra time in the final.

Although Ryan Giggs beat Charlton’s appearance record for United in 2008, his scoring record for the club lasted another nine years. It was only in 2017 — 44 years after Charlton last wore the famous red jersey of England’s most successful club — that Rooney scored his 250th goal for United.

After retiring in 1973, Charlton went into coaching and founded a youth scheme that included David Beckham, a future United and England great, among its participants.

After brief spells in charge of Preston, Wigan and Irish side Waterford, Charlton returned to United in 1984 as a director and persuaded the board in 1986 to appoint Ferguson, who delivered 38 trophies during nearly 27 years in charge.

Knighted in 1994 by Queen Elizabeth II, Charlton remains a mainstay at Old Trafford, featuring alongside Best and Law on a statue outside United’s stadium.

Charlton avoided the controversies and distractions that damaged the career of Best, with his style and demeanor bringing a popularity that transcended the tribalism of club and international football.

“I felt he could be a bit aloof,” the late Best said in a 2001 magazine interview. “We were never at each other’s throats, we simply didn’t go and have a pint together.”

Robert Charlton was born Oct. 11, 1937, in the coal-mining town of Ashington, northeast England, and his talent was obvious from a young age.

“We realized Bobby was going to be a bit special as a player when he was about 5 years old,” said older brother Jack, who played for Leeds and won the World Cup alongside him. “He was always kicking a football or a tennis ball against a wall and when it bounced back it stuck to him like a magnet.”

Charlton wrote in 2007 that his family sometimes relied on illegally caught salmon or rabbit to ward off hunger, while his father — also named Robert — gathered coal washed up on local beaches and sold it to bolster his income.

His father’s commitment to his mining colleagues meant that in 1966 he missed Charlton scoring both goals against Portugal in that World Cup semifinal because he didn’t want someone else to have to cover for him in the pit. He was, however, persuaded to attend the final when the Charlton brothers lifted the trophy.

Charlton’s playing career began far from home in Manchester after leaving school at 15, making his United debut three years later against Charlton in 1956.

Within two years, tragedy struck the tight-knit group of United players whose relationship was forged as trainees in austere conditions. The team was still celebrating winning at Red Star Belgrade to secure a place in the European Cup semifinals when their plane caught fire on its third attempt to take off in heavy snow after a refueling stop in Germany.

Charlton miraculously emerged from the smoldering wreckage with only light head injuries and picked his way through the wreckage to help survivors. Spotting manager Matt Busby groaning in agony on the smoke-shrouded runway, Charlton rushed to help the father-figure who had promoted him to the first team.

But eight members of the “Busby Babes” team packed with bright prospects were among the 21 fatalities. They included Duncan Edwards, considered one of England’s most talented players at 21.

“Sometimes it engulfs me with terrible anger and regret and sadness — and guilt that I walked away and found so much,” Charlton wrote in 2007.

Charlton became driven by a lingering obligation to preserve the memories of the Munich dead, returning to action less than four weeks later and helping a hurriedly assembled team of survivors and stand-ins reach that season’s FA Cup final.

Busby rebuilt his team around Charlton, adding the 1965 and 1967 English league titles to the championship they won in 1957.

“There was always one great hope — the return to greatness of my beloved club,” Charlton said.

The biggest prize of his club career arrived in 1968 as United became the first English club to become champion of Europe. Charlton scored twice in a 4-1 extra-time win over a Benfica team containing Portugal great Eusebio.

But Charlton is perhaps best known for being part of the England team that won the World Cup. It remains England’s only major title in men’s soccer.

Charlton and his brother fell out over Jack’s public assertion that Bobby’s wife caused him to become estranged from his mother. But the pair reconciled and Jack presented Bobby with a lifetime achievement trophy at the 2008 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award.

“We have had our public disputes, proving that in any family discord can sometimes disrupt the force of love and blood, but throughout that time I never lost the sense of wonder and gratitude that we were together in 1966 on such a great day in the history of our nation’s sport,” Bobby Charlton said.

In November 2020, it was announced that Charlton had been diagnosed with dementia, the same disease that afflicted his brother — who died in 2020 at age 85 — and another World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles.

“This man, from day one, was everything I wanted to be,” United striker Marcus Rashford wrote of Charlton after hearing about the diagnosis. “Kind, professional, caring, talented.”

He is survived by his wife, Norma, whom he married in 1961, and his two daughters.