How Kansas Metropolis wooed World Cup giants to its base camps: BBQ, padel, ‘KC Variety’

[ad_1] When 4 unassuming Argentines settled in for breakfast on the Resort Kansas Metropolis on Dec. 10, nobody — not even their hosts — knew that this, a low-key go to to America’s Thirty eighth-largest metropolis, would incite a heavyweight battle for World Cup base camps.

The Argentines — soccer directors and health coaches — have been there to tour motels and services. They have been trying to find a short lived World Cup residence, a spot the place Lionel Messi and the reigning champs may dwell and prepare this summer time. However they’d simply been to Texas; subsequent, they’d go to Miami. Kansas Metropolis, a comparatively humble city tucked away in Center America, the smallest of the 2026 World Cup’s metro areas, felt like an afterthought.

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“The pervasive rumor for Argentina,” says Alan Dietrich, Kansas Metropolis’s base camp lead, “was that they have been going to be base-camping in Miami.”

Then, nonetheless, the 4 males squeezed into Dietrich’s compact SUV. And as they hopped round Kansas and Missouri, from Sporting KC’s coaching middle to motels, pleasantly stunned by the shortage of site visitors, charmed by Dietrich’s affability, they felt … comfy. By night, they have been chowing down on well-known Kansas Metropolis barbecue at Jack Stack. “And so they liked it,” Dietrich says.

As they devoured a ramification of 10 meats, plus each aspect and dessert on the menu, they bonded with Dietrich and soccer-loving waiters. The next morning, they discovered an excellent World Cup resort — with a coherent format and house to roam, distant from downtown bustle. They finally selected Kansas Metropolis for its location “and, extra importantly, the facilities,” the Argentine soccer federation, AFA, mentioned in a information launch.

And, in doing so, they despatched England scrambling.

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England, all through 2025, had fallen for Kansas Metropolis. Everybody, from executives to go coach Thomas Tuchel, had visited. They discovered a boutique resort that felt, in some methods, like a chic English property. Over the summer time, they negotiated straight with Sporting KC; each events needed to lock in a deal for the MLS membership’s coaching floor.

FIFA, nonetheless, intervened. It launched guidelines that gave desire to highly-ranked groups and, crucially, to these with close by group-stage video games.

When December’s World Cup draw gave Argentina and the Netherlands video games in Kansas Metropolis, the Argentines, ranked No. 2, had first choose and selected Sporting’s services. The Dutch, ranked No. 7, went subsequent and selected the house of the NWSL’s Kansas Metropolis Present. England, with matches in Texas, Massachusetts and New Jersey, “felt like they have been on the skin wanting in,” Sporting KC CEO Jake Reid tells The Athletic.

However they nonetheless felt hooked up to Kansas Metropolis. So that they returned for one more spherical of excursions. And so they discovered an answer.

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They known as Sporting KC and FIFA, who known as Kansas Metropolis’s host committee. Pam Kramer, the committee’s CEO, remembers getting the decision on Dec. 11 — as Argentina’s go to was concluding. England, she was informed, was now eyeing Swope Soccer Village, residence of Sporting KC’s reserve crew and academy; may the area deal with a fourth base camp — with Algeria reportedly set to camp in close by Lawrence, Kan.? May it accommodate three top-seven groups?

The reply was “sure.” It nearly all the time has been “sure” in a metropolis that, extra so than others, sees the World Cup as a stage on which to carry out for the world.

“There's a united, collective perception that this might be transformational for the way in which folks take into consideration Kansas Metropolis,” Kramer says, “and for the boldness we now have in ourselves.”

That, above all, is why Kansas Metropolis will host three high seeds all through the 2026 World Cup, whereas no different metropolis will probably be residence base for a couple of.

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In interviews with quite a lot of folks near the bottom camp course of, a number of different causes additionally emerged. Groups valued Kansas Metropolis’s central location. They appreciated its fashionable services. They noticed its summer time warmth as a software to assist them acclimatize. They liked the potential for privateness and the benefit of transferring round.

Ultimately, although, they have been wooed by Midwestern hospitality, by proverbial “purple carpets,” and by a proud area decided to shine in World Cup spotlights — to raise itself onto a pedestal the place different host cities already sit.

“That is the most important factor we’re ever going to host,” Jenny Wilson, the VP of tourism growth for Go to KC and one of many many who welcomed Argentina’s delegation, tells The Athletic. “L.A. has the Olympics, New York hosts large issues on a regular basis, Miami, [etc.]. However for us, we’ll by no means host something this large once more.”

‘We went excessive’ This story, Kansas Citians say — the story of how their neglected city turned the bottom camp capital of the World Cup — begins with cash. It begins with some $650 million invested in soccer infrastructure throughout the metro space since 2009, cash that constructed the fields and services the place Argentina, England and the Netherlands will quickly prepare.

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However the story accelerates in 2021, in crunch time for potential World Cup cities, as FIFA officers toured 23 of them earlier than selecting 16. Of the 23, Kansas Metropolis was the third-smallest. It needed to beat out Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital; Nashville, the Music Metropolis; and Denver. It bought itself because the “soccer capital of America,” but it surely was, inherently, an underdog straddling two flyover states — one with a dark, rundown airport that it couldn’t disguise. (The brand new airport, which opened in 2023, was nonetheless beneath building.)

So, on the night of Oct. 20, 2021, Reid and the bid committee dispatched round 200 Sporting KC staffers and volunteers to roam the airport terminal as FIFA’s delegation arrived, “simply to make it appear like it was energetic,” Reid says.

Drivers, with FIFA inspectors in tow, took a fastidiously scripted route by means of the town, previous billboards and buildings that bellowed: “WE WANT THE WORLD CUP.”

The next morning, bid officers enlisted locals to play soccer on a grassy space close to FIFA’s resort, alongside the trail from conferences to a barbecue lunch.

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“We went excessive,” Reid says. “I may most likely assure you no different metropolis was doing it to that diploma.” That evening, they reserved a collection at Sporting’s stadium for a U.S. ladies’s nationwide crew pleasant. FIFA officers “ended up staying about 90 minutes after the match in our VIP suite,” Dietrich says, “simply having an excellent time and partying.”

None of that, after all, straight explains why England and Argentina hand-picked Kansas Metropolis. But it surely speaks to the lengths that everybody, from politicians to random residents, has gone to assist or entice all elements of the World Cup.

When directors from touring groups would roll as much as the Present’s facility in Riverside, Mo., for instance, the membership’s president, GM, head of services and a co-owner could be outdoors able to greet them, Present proprietor Chris Lengthy tells The Athletic. After handshakes and pleasantries, they’d head to a boardroom, then on an in depth tour of high-tech pitches, eating areas and different areas.

“We needed them to not solely meet however hear from the highest of the group how we felt they might be handled,” Lengthy says, and “how they might have the ability to have a safe, state-of-the-art keep in our space.”

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Round a dozen groups, together with France and Germany, finally visited Kansas Metropolis. Dietrich, a former Sporting KC exec, turned one thing of a private information.

He took England’s delegation, together with Tuchel, to High Golf and for just a few video games of padel. (“When he performed padel,” Dietrich says of Tuchel, “man, he was intense.”)

He drove the Argentine delegation — health coaches Luis Martín and Juan Tamone, and directors Daniel Cabrera and Alberto Pernas — throughout the area, bonding with them as he went. Cabrera was fluent in English. Dietrich knew simply sufficient Spanish. At any time when he’d hear a private anecdote, or find out about Argentina’s resort wants, he’d seize his telephone and faucet out a textual content to managers at their subsequent vacation spot, priming them to make a robust impression. “I [was] driving with my knees,” Dietrich says with fun.

“It does sound obsessive, I do know,” he provides. “However we're simply that means.”

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And he firmly believes that the obsessiveness, coupled with the heat that he calls “KC form,” is why worldwide soccer’s giants got here to belief and covet Kansas Metropolis.

“Particulars don’t simply converse, they shout,” Dietrich says, reciting a quote. “Folks recognize when the little issues go proper.”

How England was bought England visited not less than six occasions all through 2025, and nearly immediately, staffers liked the Sporting facility in Kansas Metropolis, Kan. At a price of $75 million, it opened in 2018 and homes each the MLS membership and varied U.S. Soccer Federation actions. The English, and later Argentina, have been impressed with all the things from the multi-story fitness center to social areas. What they couldn’t initially discover was a correct resort.

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So, forward of their second go to, Dietrich and his crew compiled choices that aligned with England’s wants. They finally settled on a property south of Kansas Metropolis — reportedly the Inn at Meadowbrook — that England will hire out in its entirety in the course of the World Cup. It’s adjoining to a park and “tranquil lakes,” the right place for gamers to unwind. “We,” the resort’s web site boasts, “have room to breathe.”

This, room to breathe, was a part of Kansas Metropolis’s broader enchantment. The area — unfold throughout 14 counties, numerous suburbs and eight,472 sq. miles — is the antithesis of different World Cup markets, similar to New York.

“That is additionally an easy, safe place to have your existence throughout what's in any other case a really nerve-racking time,” Lengthy says. “It’s not like there’s tremendous intense media right here. You’re not going to have a difficulty holding gamers protected.”

Kansas Metropolis has developed a observe report, too, for catering to superstars — similar to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, teammate Travis Kelce and Kelce’s fiancée, Taylor Swift.

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The ultimate ingredient, for England, was an interpersonal contact. In June, when Tuchel, Soccer Affiliation CEO Mark Bullingham and others visited Kansas Metropolis, Dietrich and Reid took them to Eddie V’s, an upscale restaurant. In a non-public room, they feasted on steaks and swapped tales from their time in soccer. “We had a blast,” Dietrich remembers. And so they solidified a relationship that underpins any base camp dedication.

“On the finish of the day,” Reid says, “you have got to be ok with the folks.”

Dietrich frames it as 4 key questions: “Can we belief you? Will you be a accomplice with us? Will you assist us after we want it? Do you care?”

By June, England knew that the resounding solutions have been sure, sure, sure and sure.

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And in December, Kansas Metropolis proved it.

The post-draw frenzy and ‘the Wild West’ Months of diligence and meticulous prep gave method to a “frenzy” on Dec. 6. A whole bunch of coaches and crew directors filed right into a second-floor ballroom at D.C.’s Capital Hilton to study their World Cup schedules, then fanned out throughout North America to scout base camps that jibed with their group fixtures. Many scheduled excursions; others knocked on doorways, unannounced. “Tunisia confirmed up at [Sporting KC’s] stadium,” Reid remembers. “Our safety man known as me, he’s like, ‘Hey, Tunisia’s right here.’ We have been like, ‘What?’”

“It was just like the Wild West,” Reid says.

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Argentina, although, held the keys. When it selected Sporting KC, dominoes began falling. The Netherlands, sitting second within the Kansas Metropolis pecking order, had visited in early 2025 and once more quickly after the draw. On follow-up calls over Zoom, the Dutch talked by means of logistics with the Present. They leant into the thought of utilizing a world-class coaching facility purpose-built for girls’s skilled soccer, the primary of its form. They dedicated. And with that, everybody else was successfully shut out.

“Austria was within the Present facility,” Reid says. “They most likely would’ve picked that if not for Argentina.” As a substitute, the Austrians have been compelled to go west.

However England — which additionally held intensive conversations with the Present — compelled its means again into the dialog. After touring a number of different U.S. cities, it organized yet one more Kansas Metropolis go to and inquired about Swope. Kramer’s first thought was about price range — may the host committee afford to safe a 3rd website? After discussions with native authorities officers and police departments, all concerned determined they’d discover a means.

Reid’s first thought, in the meantime, was: Uh, the place will we prepare?

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For years, he’d deliberate to ship Sporting’s first crew to Swope whereas a World Cup crew took over the membership’s important facility. If England have been to take over Swope as properly, he’d need to seek for a Plan C.

So, he started looking out. Two months later, he nonetheless is. Nonetheless, after discussing the dilemma with Sporting KC’s homeowners and GM, the considered turning England away was by no means significantly thought-about.

When requested why — why would you quit two services on the expense of your individual crew? — Reid will get philosophical. Positioning Kansas Metropolis because the “base camp capital of the world,” he explains, will carry the town and his membership. Will probably be a advertising software and a recruiting software. English and Argentine stars will return to their golf equipment (and their brokers) and glow concerning the Ok.C. expertise. Maybe, sometime, one in every of them (or a good friend) will return as a Sporting participant.

And for the area, advantages are already evident. Kansas Metropolis is on the map. At this World Cup, it is going to be extra seen than Boston, than Seattle, even perhaps Philadelphia and Atlanta.

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“Maybe, at one level, we have been blissful to be nominated, we have been blissful to have a seat on the desk,” Kramer says. “Now, we need to be the very best host metropolis within the event.”

This text initially appeared in The Athletic.

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