USMNT selects Irvine, California as 2026 World Cup training base | USA
The United States men’s national team will base itself in Irvine, California, for the World Cup, Irvine Mayor Larry Argan announced in his State of the City address Tuesday evening. The team will train at Great Park Championship Soccer Stadium, a facility built in 2017 and the daily home of USL Championship side Orange County SC.
“We are thrilled to have Great Park as our training site for the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker said in a statement. “The facilities are simply exceptional and will provide the perfect training environment for our team to prepare for success at the World Cup.”
The decision to base the team in Irvine will also have geographic advantages: The United States will play two of its three World Cup group stage matches at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, just under 50 miles from Great Park by road.
The move also echoes the United States’ preparations for the last men’s World Cup as host. For that 1994 tournament, the United States also trained in Southern California and stayed at a resort in Dana Point, a coastal location praised by players for its serene ambiance amid the pressure cooker of the World Cup.
In other respects, however, the location could hardly be more different. Great Park is far from the Pacific Coast, nestled amid the sprawl and suburban development of Orange County. The championship football stadium is one of several points of interest in and around Great Park, an urban development popular with locals since it opened in 2007.
It also carries an interesting story. The site on which the park sits was previously home to a United States Marine Corps air base from 1942 until it was decommissioned in 1999. The extensive park that exists on the site still features many of the trails that were used when it was an air base, including a walkable timeline of Earth’s history that begins in the year 13,000 BC.
The park also includes 24 soccer fields, four ice hockey rinks, sand volleyball courts, basketball courts, hiking trails, biking trails, nature reserves, and a hot air balloon ride that is the centerpiece of the park.
The United States will begin their training period at Great Park immediately following their final pre-World Cup friendly against Germany in Chicago on June 6. They will open the World Cup in Inglewood against Paraguay on June 14, travel to Seattle for their second match against Australia, then return to the Los Angeles area for the final group match against the winner of the European qualifier between Turkey, Slovakia, Romania and Kosovo.
