The World Cup dream is underway. The Argentina national team arrived in the United States: flight AR1978 (appropriately, a more than symbolic number) landed in Kansas this Sunday around midday to begin its training camp for the 2026 World Cup. Minutes later, the squad arrived at the Origin Hotel, where it will be based during the World Cup, which begins next June 11.
Gerónimo Rulli, Nicolás Tagliafico, Valentín Barco, Nicolás Paz, Julián Álvarez, Enzo Fernández, Nicolás González, Gonzalo Montiel, Leonardo Balerdi, Giovani Lo Celso, Nicolás Otamendi, Nahuel Molina, Cristian Romero, José Manuel López, Leandro Paredes, Giuliano Simeone, Exequiel Palacios, and Thiago Almada were part of the delegation that left Buenos Aires and is already at the complex.
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Other players will join the camp directly in the coming hours. Among them are Lionel Messi (captain and team legend) and Rodrigo De Paul, Inter Miami players in MLS. Lisandro Martínez and Dibu Martínez, who play in the Premier League, are also already traveling from England. Training sessions will begin early Monday morning.
The Argentina national team will train at the Sporting KC Training Centre, home of Sporting Kansas City. The facility, inaugurated in 2018, is located between the Kansas and Missouri rivers in the city’s metropolitan area and has several soccer fields. Geographically, it is in the central-eastern part of the United States, and climatically it is very unstable at this time of year, with heat, humidity, and the possibility of severe storms.
The team is staying at the Origin Hotel, where renovations are being completed these days that the squad will be the first to use, including a huge additional gym. Twenty minutes from the training center, it offers views of the Missouri River and is located in the central urban area, so it is also expected to become a meeting point for fans. It is new as well: construction of its main building dates back to 2023.
On Friday, the team will travel to Texas, where on Saturday it will face Honduras in College Station in its first warm-up friendly. On Sunday it will continue training in Texas, and on Monday it will head to Alabama—even farther east—for Tuesday the 9th’s test against Iceland in Auburn.
That same day, the group will return to Kansas to keep working until its World Cup debut on Tuesday, June 16 against Algeria in that same city. Against Austria on Monday the 22nd, the action will move to Arlington, Texas, and there will also be an immediate return to the Kansas bunker. On Saturday the 27th, against Jordan, the venue will again be the same, and it remains to be seen, since it is a late kick-off match, whether they will take the charter in the early hours of that morning or spend the night there.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.
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