IRVINE, Calif. -- As the U.S. men's national team coach Mauricio Pochettino surveyed the scene at Championship Soccer Stadium in the Great Park Sports Complex, he could only marvel at the setup his team was enjoying.
On this day, over 5,500 people were in attendance at the USMNT's lone open training session during the World Cup, an event mandated by FIFA for every single participating team. But beyond the crowd last week, Pochettino was lauding the facilities the team had at its disposal.
"It's amazing," he told reporters. "We need to say thank you to the organization, our organization, the soccer organization because I think to find that environment and facilities ... it's crazy. It's more that we expect."
The World Cup is a lot of things for the players that participate. It's the culmination of a lifelong dream and the pinnacle of many a career. Practically speaking, it's also an extended road trip. In the case of the U.S. team, the players and staff could be together for over 60 days if everything goes right. Around half of that time could be spent in Southern California at the base camp.
"You want to feel like you have a good home base, right? You have a place that you [don't] have to worry about all the little details off the field," U.S. defender Tim Ream told reporters. "Everything's been taken care of for us. We're very, very much spoiled in that way as players, and that allows us to focus on everything that we need to, whether it be in the gym or on the field."
The USMNT's home away from home at the World Cup
The team's home away from home consists of two main facilities: the hotel on the Southern California coast and the practice facility at Great Park. The hotel is meant to be a pure sanctuary, a place to unwind from the pressures the World Cup can bring. There's also an emphasis on recovery, with spaces for items such as massages and deep tissue work.
"The flow is great for the players, a lot of outdoor space for us to just be relaxed and calm," U.S. manager of operations Sam Zapatka said.
"We obviously have a coffee service that the boys enjoy in the morning and the afternoon, but it's much more of a place for them to decompress and relax. We've got some recovery units, we've got some really good spaces also for our coaching staff, for our performance staff, for our comms staff to work with natural light. But it's a place where the players feel very, very comfortable and can truly disconnect from football."
The space seems very zen except when the NBA Finals are on TV, as viral video showed in the aftermath of the New York Knicks' dramatic Game 4 win. While the hotel is meant to be a haven, the practice facility is all business.
"That's where the boys compete. That's where they work. That's where everyone needs to be as focused as possible," Zapatka added.
There are four locker rooms for players, coaches and staff, including one that acts as a meeting space. There's also a medical treatment room, a space constructed by Orange County. It's outdoors, so cool breezes waft through. There are fields galore -- 24 of them, to be exact.
There's also an emphasis on unity for everyone involved in the team's quest for the World Cup. On the wall by the entrance to the field is a photo of the entire team and staff, emblazoned with the phrase "The Best of U.S." Most of all, it's designed to make the players' existence as easy as possible.
"Flow is really important from a player mindset of they want to think the [least]," Zapatka said. "So when they walk in, they go to the locker room, then they go to the field, then they go to the gym that walks right out onto the field."
After training, the team will engage in grounding, an activity that includes the players taking off their shoes and socks and walking barefoot on the grass. "It's been something that we saw and noticed in Qatar, and just really the calmness of that whole area is something that they have really enjoyed," Zapatka said. "So we spend as much time [at Great Park] as we can."
The great pivot to Great Park
At a World Cup, the process by which the U.S. selects its hotel and training facility tends to be manager-driven. Back in 2006, Bruce Arena wanted his team to be in the middle of downtown Hamburg, Germany. In 2014, Jurgen Klinsmann wanted something similar, so he opted for the team to be based in Sao Paulo and use Sao Paulo FC's training facility. At the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Bob Bradley wanted something a bit more remote, so he opted for the team to stay at Irene Country Lodge outside of Johannesburg.
This time around, the process was filled with more twists. Zapatka's search for a hotel/training site combo began three years ago, back when Gregg Berhalter was still manager.
FIFA provided a brochure of hotel/training site combinations that teams could request. If multiple teams asked for the same site, ties were broken by FIFA ranking as well as how many games teams would play in the area. When it was learned that the U.S. would play two of its games in the Los Angeles area at SoFi Stadium, the criteria began to take shape.
"We certainly didn't want to be in Los Angeles," Zapatka said. "The busyness, the traffic, the downtown -- dirty, smelly. We wanted to be somewhere a little bit removed, but also within distance of driving to our first game and not having to take a charter flight."
Initially, the U.S. Soccer Federation settled on a combination of the current team hotel in Laguna Niguel plus a training site at UC Irvine. But UC Irvine balked at some of FIFA's demands and ultimately backed out, which forced a change in direction in terms of planning.
"Because FIFA always has to own a majority of the rights at the hotel and at the training venue, there were some contractual things that FIFA and UC Irvine just couldn't agree on," Zapatka said. "And so we made a pivot to Great Park because it was on the team brochure. It was still within driving distance [to SoFi] that we felt was appropriate. And the moment I saw it, it was an immediate yes, and we changed it within a day.
"When I first walked in, there was the [city community services] manager, Steven Stewart. When I walked up the stairs, he said, 'Welcome to your new home.' And that pretty much sealed the deal. The facilities were fantastic. It's a very soccer-specific facility, which we were lacking at UC Irvine."
There were the all-important branding opportunities as well, including putting the U.S. Soccer logo on a massive balloon on the premises.
During this time, the Americans had gone through a change in manager, with Berhalter out and Pochettino in. Pochettino had previously given approval to UC Irvine, but when the change to Great Park was made, it was left to assistant Jesus Perez to give his blessing, which he did.
You can't take (most of) it with you
When the U.S. took part in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, almost everything was easier to deal with. As Zapatka put it, there was one banquet manager, one hotel room coordinator and one venue manager for the duration of the team's stay. This time around, the team will be on the move more, starting with Friday's match against Australia in Seattle. Though that will make things more complicated, the training site and hotel are set, with the team set to practice at the University of Washington.
"Then we'll just come back to our team base camp afterwards," Zapatka said. "We'll bring some equipment, but the majority of it we'll leave here in [Irvine]."
The team will then return to its Irvine base camp for the final group stage match against Türkiye. At that point, the U.S. will find itself leaving its newfound home.
Per FIFA rules, each squad can use a base camp for the group stage matches, but once the knockout rounds start, teams will be forced to venue hop. For the USMNT, depending on where they finish in the group, they could depart as soon as June 29 and as late as July 1. The full gym setup that the team now uses at Great Park will have to be left behind, but all of the recovery equipment will still travel with the team.
That will require Zapatka to then re-create as best he can the conditions that exist at Great Park and the team's current hotel. He and his assistant, Kristen Washburn, won't be surprised at anything they encounter.
"We have visited every single possible hotel and training site that we could potentially go to," he said. "It's very similar probably to Gold Cup from my experience," he said. "Obviously, [that's] not a World Cup, but basically it's just city to city. Win and move on, win and move on."
The hope is that is precisely what the Americans will do at this World Cup.
