When 4 unassuming Argentines settled in for breakfast on the Hotel Kansas City 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 amenities. They have been looking for a brief World Cup dwelling, a spot the place Lionel Messi and the reigning champs might dwell and prepare this summer time. But they’d simply been to Texas; subsequent, they’d go to Miami. Kansas City, a comparatively humble city tucked away in Middle America, the smallest of the 2026 World Cup’s metro areas, felt like an afterthought.
“The pervasive rumor for Argentina,” says Alan Dietrich, Kansas City’s base camp lead, “was that they were going to be base-camping in Miami.”
Then, nevertheless, the 4 males squeezed into Dietrich’s compact SUV. And as they hopped round Kansas and Missouri, from Sporting KC’s coaching heart to motels, pleasantly stunned by the dearth of site visitors, charmed by Dietrich’s affability, they felt … snug. By night, they have been chowing down on well-known Kansas City barbecue at Jack Stack. “And they loved it,” Dietrich says.
As they devoured a selection of 10 meats, plus each aspect and dessert on the menu, they bonded with Dietrich and soccer-loving waiters. The following morning, they discovered an excellent World Cup lodge — with a coherent structure and house to roam, distant from downtown bustle. They finally selected Kansas City for its location “and, more importantly, the amenities,” the Argentine soccer federation, AFA, mentioned in a news release.
And, in doing so, they despatched England scrambling.
England, all through 2025, had fallen for Kansas City. Everyone, from executives to head coach Thomas Tuchel, had visited. They discovered a boutique lodge that felt, in some methods, like a sublime 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, nevertheless, intervened. It launched guidelines that gave desire to highly-ranked groups and, crucially, to these with close by group-stage video games.
Kansas City is among the many 11 U.S. host cities for the 2026 World Cup (Emily Curiel / The Kansas City Star / Tribune News Service / Getty Images)
When December’s World Cup draw gave Argentina and the Netherlands video games in Kansas City, the Argentines, ranked No. 2, had first choose and selected Sporting’s amenities. The Dutch, ranked No. 7, went subsequent and selected the house of the NWSL’s Kansas City Current. England, with matches in Texas, Massachusetts and New Jersey, “felt like they were on the outside looking in,” Sporting KC CEO Jake Reid tells The Athletic.
But they nonetheless felt hooked up to Kansas City. So they returned for one more spherical of excursions. And they discovered an answer.
They known as Sporting KC and FIFA, who known as Kansas City’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 advised, was now eyeing Swope Soccer Village, dwelling of Sporting KC’s reserve staff and academy; might the area deal with a fourth base camp — with Algeria reportedly set to camp in close by Lawrence, Kan.? Could it accommodate three top-seven groups?
The reply was “yes.” It virtually at all times has been “yes” in a metropolis that, extra so than others, sees the World Cup as a stage on which to carry out for the world.
“There is a united, collective belief that this could be transformational for the way people think about Kansas City,” Kramer says, “and for the confidence we have in ourselves.”
That, above all, is why Kansas City will host three prime seeds all through the 2026 World Cup, whereas no different metropolis might be dwelling base for multiple.
In interviews with quite a lot of folks shut to the base camp course of, a number of different causes additionally emerged. Teams valued Kansas City’s central location. They appreciated its trendy amenities. They noticed its summer time warmth as a software to assist them acclimatize. They beloved the potential for privateness and the convenience of shifting round.
In the top, although, they have been wooed by Midwestern hospitality, by proverbial “red carpets,” and by a proud area decided to shine in World Cup spotlights — to elevate itself onto a pedestal the place different host cities already sit.
“This is the biggest thing we’re ever going to host,” Jenny Wilson, the VP of tourism growth for Visit KC and one of many many who welcomed Argentina’s delegation, tells The Athletic. “L.A. has the Olympics, New York hosts massive things all the time, Miami, [etc.]. But for us, we’ll never host anything this big again.”
‘We went over the top’
This story, Kansas Citians say — the story of how their ignored city turned the base 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 amenities the place Argentina, England and the Netherlands will quickly prepare.
But the story accelerates in 2021, in crunch time for potential World Cup cities, as FIFA officers toured 23 of them earlier than choosing 16. Of the 23, Kansas City was the third-smallest. It had to beat out Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital; Nashville, the Music City; 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 cover. (The new airport, which opened in 2023, was nonetheless underneath 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, “just to make it look like it was energetic,” Reid says.
Drivers, with FIFA inspectors in tow, took a fastidiously scripted route by way of town, previous billboards and buildings that bellowed: “WE WANT THE WORLD CUP.”
The following morning, bid officers enlisted locals to play soccer on a grassy space close to FIFA’s lodge, alongside the trail from conferences to a barbecue lunch.
“We went over the top,” Reid says. “I could probably guarantee you no other city was doing it to that degree.” That night time, they reserved a set at Sporting’s stadium for a U.S. girls’s nationwide staff pleasant. FIFA officers “ended up staying about 90 minutes after the match in our VIP suite,” Dietrich says, “just having a good time and partying.”
None of that, in fact, straight explains why England and Argentina hand-picked Kansas City. But it speaks to the lengths that everybody, from politicians to random residents, has gone to assist or appeal to all elements of the World Cup.
Defending champion Argentina will base itself for the World Cup at Sporting Kansas City’s amenities (Hernan Cortez / Getty Images)
When directors from touring groups would roll up to the Current’s facility in Riverside, Mo., for instance, the membership’s president, GM, head of amenities and a co-owner can be exterior prepared to greet them, Current proprietor Chris Long 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 wanted them to not only meet but hear from the top of the organization how we felt they would be treated,” Long says, and “how they would be able to have a secure, state-of-the-art stay in our area.”
Around a dozen groups, together with France and Germany, in the end visited Kansas City. Dietrich, a former Sporting KC exec, turned one thing of a private information.
He took England’s delegation, together with Tuchel, to Top Golf and for a number of video games of padel. (“When he played 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. Whenever he’d hear a private anecdote, or find out about Argentina’s lodge 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 know,” he provides. “But we are just that way.”
And he firmly believes that the obsessiveness, coupled with the heat that he calls “KC kind,” is why worldwide soccer’s giants got here to belief and covet Kansas City.
“Details don’t just speak, they shout,” Dietrich says, reciting a quote. “People appreciate when the little things go right.”
Thomas Tuchel participated in Kansas City’s World Cup coaching camp pitch to England (Alex Pantling / Getty Images)
How England was bought
England visited at the very least six occasions all through 2025, and virtually immediately, staffers beloved the Sporting facility in Kansas City, 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 every little thing from the multi-story health club to social areas. What they couldn’t initially discover was a correct lodge.
So, forward of their second go to, Dietrich and his staff compiled choices that aligned with England’s wants. They finally settled on a property south of Kansas City — 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 proper place for gamers to unwind. “We,” the hotel’s website boasts, “have room to breathe.”
This, room to breathe, was a part of Kansas City’s broader enchantment. The area — unfold throughout 14 counties, numerous suburbs and eight,472 sq. miles — is the antithesis of different World Cup markets, corresponding to New York.
“This is also a very easy, secure place to have your existence during what is otherwise a very stressful time,” Long says. “It’s not like there’s super intense media here. You’re not going to have an issue keeping players safe.”
Kansas City has developed a observe file, too, for catering to superstars — corresponding to Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, teammate Travis Kelce and Kelce’s fiancée, Taylor Swift.
The closing ingredient, for England, was an interpersonal contact. In June, when Tuchel, Football Association CEO Mark Bullingham and others visited Kansas City, 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 they solidified a relationship that underpins any base camp dedication.
“At the end of the day,” Reid says, “you have to feel good about the people.”
Dietrich frames it as 4 key questions: “Can we trust you? Will you be a partner with us? Will you help us when we need it? Do you care?”
By June, England knew that the resounding solutions have been sure, sure, sure and sure.
And in December, Kansas City proved it.
Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas, left, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino share a playful second within the run-up to the 2026 World Cup (Jamie Sabau / FIFA / Getty Images)
The post-draw frenzy and ‘the Wild West’
Months of diligence and meticulous prep gave means to a “frenzy” on Dec. 6. Hundreds of coaches and staff directors filed right into a second-floor ballroom at D.C.’s Capital Hilton to learn 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 showed up at [Sporting KC’s] stadium,” Reid remembers. “Our security guy called me, he’s like, ‘Hey, Tunisia’s here.’ We were like, ‘What?’”
“It was like the Wild West,” Reid says.
Argentina, although, held the keys. When it selected Sporting KC, dominoes began falling. The Netherlands, sitting second within the Kansas City pecking order, had visited in early 2025 and once more quickly after the draw. On follow-up calls over Zoom, the Dutch talked by way of logistics with the Current. They leant into the concept of utilizing a world-class coaching facility purpose-built for ladies’s skilled soccer, the primary of its form. They dedicated. And with that, everybody else was successfully shut out.
“Austria was interested in the Current facility,” Reid says. “They probably would’ve picked that if not for Argentina.” Instead, the Austrians have been pressured to head west.
But England — which additionally held in depth conversations with the Current — pressured its means again into the dialog. After touring a number of different U.S. cities, it organized yet one more Kansas City go to and inquired about Swope. Kramer’s first thought was about finances — might the host committee afford to safe a 3rd web site? 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?
For years, he’d deliberate to ship Sporting’s first staff to Swope whereas a World Cup staff took over the membership’s predominant facility. If England have been to take over Swope as nicely, he’d have 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 critically thought of.
When requested why — why would you quit two amenities on the expense of your personal staff? — Reid will get philosophical. Positioning Kansas City because the “base camp capital of the world,” he explains, will raise town and his membership. It might be a advertising and marketing 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. Perhaps, sometime, one among them (or a pal) will return as a Sporting participant.
And for the area, advantages are already evident. Kansas City is on the map. At this World Cup, will probably be extra seen than Boston, than Seattle, even perhaps Philadelphia and Atlanta.
“Perhaps, at one point, we were happy to be nominated, we were happy to have a seat at the table,” Kramer says. “Now, we want to be the best host city in the tournament.”
