Dallas pitch ready for last hurrah after nine matches and years of research

DALLAS, July 12 : When France take on Spain with a place in the World Cup final at stake, the encounter is guaranteed to mark the end for one key participant in Tuesday's match: the Dallas Stadium pitch.It took five years of research to perfect the surfaces used across the tournament, and for the renowned stadium in Texas that involved cultivating a full-sized pitch on top of the field used by the Dallas Cowboys."What we're doing here is hosting the biggest football tournament in the world, these are the best players in the world so we want to provide the best surfaces for them," says Ian Craig, FIFA's pitch manager for Dallas Stadium.Turf scientists and groundskeepers worked with the University of Tennessee, Michigan State University and FIFA's pitch management team to ensure the pitches