Why it was ‘best’ to be out west: How USMNT’s World Cup has wound up on one coast

IRVINE, Calif. — After three weeks here in Southern California, the U.S. men’s national soccer team will depart its World Cup base camp on Monday… and stay west.The USMNT has captured the attention of the entire United States, and typically travels all around the country. But its home World Cup will continue to play out entirely on the Pacific coast.After two group games near Los Angeles and one in Seattle, the U.S. will head to the Bay Area for a round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. If the Americans win, they’ll go to Seattle again for the round of 16. And if they win again, they’ll be back in Southern California for a quarterfinal.The western slate has left a majority of America without easy access to any USMNT World Cup games, but, at the same time, it’s exactly what the team and the U.S. Soccer Federation wanted.“Our hope was to be in a position where we could establish a base camp for a really long time, and benefit from that infrastructure, and from being able to have a place where it’s a great atmosphere for our staff and for our players,” U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson told The Athletic.USA continue to dream ahead of the round of 32Tom BogertBack in 2023 and 2024, the federation and staff, led by then-head coach Gregg Berhalter, delivered that message to FIFA, the global soccer governing body that runs the World Cup.They had “informal conversations” with various FIFA officials, then one “final conversation with (FIFA’s) technical department” before the initial framework of the World Cup schedule was set in 2024, Berhalter said.“Our main piece of advice,” Berhalter noted, “was about trying to minimize travel and minimize time zone changes.”Other nations felt similarly. FIFA had consulted soccer leaders in the three host countries, and also held a broader “coaches’ forum” in May of 2023 to seek input on scheduling. Because of the tournament’s vast geographic footprint, spread across 16 North American cities, coaches and organizers agreed that each team should, for the most part, stick to a given region or time zone.