Union Station lights up in team colors to welcome FIFA World Cup to Kansas City
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Union Station will light building in England, Netherlands and Argentina team colors.
- Station's Berlin Wall exhibit will open before the World Cup matches.
- Union Station canceled Mardi Gras lighting to honor Rev. Jesse Jackson, 84.
Update: With the official announcement Thursday that Algeria’s national men’s soccer team will make its base camp in Lawrence, Kansas during the World Cup, Union Station added Algeria’s team colors of white, green and red to Thursday’s lighting show.
Three — count ‘em, three — top-10 teams will use Kansas City as their World Cup home base this summer (and a fourth squad is expected to camp in Lawrence). If you don’t follow the sport, it’s not too early to learn their team colors because you’ll be seeing a lot of them around town.
You can look to Union Station this week for a quick lesson.
On Thursday, the landmark building will be lit in those team colors.
England — red and white for away matches.
Netherlands — orange. (Oranje, the Dutch word for orange, is the team’s nickname.)
Argentina — light blue, white and gold.
Wednesday night the building will light up in black, red and gold to announce Union Station’s next exhibit — “The Berlin Wall. A World Divided” — which will open before the World Cup matches.
Station officials, who announced the exhibit Wednesday, did not give a start date.
Union Station had planned to mark Mardi Gras with special lighting Tuesday, but instead kept most of the building’s exterior unlit to honor the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died Tuesday at age 84.
This story was originally published February 18, 2026 at 12:32 PM.
.jpg)