The mower fires up to groom the field that’s usually home to the Division II Bentley Falcons. Next week, it’ll host Kylian Mbappé and the French National team. Athletic director Vaughn Williams is overseeing the prep. And he seems pretty calm for someone who’s about to host the top-ranked team in the world.“We didn't do it to gain revenue,” Bentley University's athletic director Vaughn Williams said of hosting the French National team. “We just did it to be a part of something special.”Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images“Yeah, well, you know, I work in athletics, so, you know, I'm used to pressure,” he said.Pressure, in this case, to get every detail right. Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, is one of the base camps for soccer teams competing in this year’s World Cup. Teams representing countries around the globe are arriving in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for the matches, which kick off next week and will run for more than a month. Each of the 48 teams that’ll be playing will have its own “base camp” – a place for players, coaches, and staff to prepare for the world’s most popular sporting event.And the details matter here. The grass must be cut to a uniform nine-tenths of an inch; World Cup officials came to measure that. Sightlines to the field need to be obscured to prevent spying. Vaughn said that was a tough sell to team reps last winter.“When they did first come, it was covered in snow,” he said, chuckling. And the trees surrounding the field were leafless. “I sat here talking to the coach about, ‘No, don't worry, that'll all fill in. No one can see you from up top of the hill in the buildings.’" Some of the World Cup base camps are more used to these challenges than others. Argentina is using a professional training center in Kansas City. Portugal will practice at a public park in Florida. Tournament officials have been making sure all the training surfaces are up to snuff.Above, the gym facilities inside Swope Soccer Village in Kansas City, the official base camp for England for this year's World Cup.Jamie Squire/Getty Images“We just got done replacing the field about three weeks ago,” said John Ruppert, deputy athletic director at Bryant University in Rhode Island, which will host team Ghana. World Cup organizers paid for the replacement, he said. “It's crazy — they replaced the field for probably 12 days of practice. But it did turn out beautiful.”Ruppert said hosting does cost the school money, which includes installing new fencing and turning over its facilities to the team. And the rental fee it earns just barely covers those costs.“We're not making a lot of money. It's more headache than anything else,” Ruppert said. But, “there's great PR to be associated with the World Cup.”It could help the school to recruit international students, Ruppert noted. “So this is a great opportunity to get the Bryant name brand out there to the rest of the world.”Above, a worker cuts grass at the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Arizona, where Iran's national football team will train.Rebecca Noble/AFP via Getty ImagesIt’s a similar story for Vaughn Williams back at Bentley University. It is a business school, so he made sure hosting France would be revenue-positive. Still, “we didn't do it to gain revenue,” Williams said. “We just did it to be a part of something special.”When the tournament starts, Williams said he’ll root for team USA, “but also root for France to get to the finals, 'cause we wanna be, you know — we wanna be like, ‘We produced that.’”For a good night’s sleep, the French opted not to use the college dorms. They booked the Four Seasons instead.