The English press are certainly not renowned for their accuracy – particularly when it comes to football. So this “exclusive” from the Mirror shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: USA set to steal England’s preferred World Cup training base due to Fabio Capello’s indecision. The BBC Gossip page picked it up as well. The Mirror goes on to say:
England boss Fabio Capello loved the facilities on a visit last week. But he was unhappy with the grass on the training pitches and wants another look in the New Year. His indecision means the FA has failed to complete the £1million deal for the 82-room complex from June 4 to July 12 next year. And now we are in danger of being gazumped by the Yanks, who are also said to be keen on the venue. Bafokeng spokesman Martin Bekker told the Mirror the base – which also offers valuable altitude training at 1,500m above sea level – was a “very attractive option” to other nations in England’s group, especially the USA, for whom money is no object.
Funny – I thought I had read this story on Soccernet last Summer, saying the US already had booked their facility. This would be a great story – if it were true, especially the part of the cash-strapped US soccer federation being money is no object.
The Americans grabbed the coveted training site the Italians are using at this tournament for next year’s World Cup. Southdowns College in Irene is on the outskirts of Pretoria, 30 miles from Johannesburg. The highly rated facility contains three full soccer fields, with six more planned. There is also a gym and pool. “U.S. Soccer followed all of the procedures for securing a base camp as required by FIFA, and based on the time of our request we have our first option and we have FIFA’s confirmation on this,” U.S. Soccer spokesman Michael Kammarman told The Associated Press on Sunday. “Of course, this is subject to qualifying for the World Cup.”
I guess those Brits have never heard of the google which can be used to find stuff located in a series of tubes.
UPDATE—
Jason Davis at MatchFit makes the great point in comments that the US has also been talking about how close all the games are to their base camp.
Filed under: England National Team, USMNT, World Cup 2010 |
Max Bergmann
Jay Heidbrink
Ken Gude
Pat Garofalo
Association Football 
That’s funny, hadn’t see that “report”. I did a brief piece on the US base a little while back. This is especially amusing considering that the Americans have been talking about the group stage advantage they have with each venue being a relatively short distance away from their base.
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