World Cup teams considered USC, Columbia as training site. So why didn’t it happen?
Through a week and a half, the indelible images of this World Cup — the first played in North America since 1994 — have included very little of actual soccer.
Far more memorable have been the videos of foreigners treating Walmart and Buc-ee’s as the eighth and ninth wonders of the world. Or the Scots drinking a harbor’s worth of Guinness in Boston before leaving the city with a higher approval rating than Tom Brady and Paul Revere combined.
Or the folks of Lawrence, Kansas who turned into America’s most-feverish supporters of the — checks notes — Algerian national team for no other reason than the Northern African nation chose the University of Kansas in Lawrence (Pop: 96,376) as their training grounds throughout the World Cup.
That sparked a bizarro-world video of a middle-aged American walking through Lawrence holding an Algerian scarf uttering the phrase, “Rock Chalk, Algeria” — a play on the KU’s famous “Rock Chalk, Jawhawk” saying.
And, well, videos of Columbia residents chanting, “Spurs up for Scotland” or playing “Sandstorm” for the Harry Kane and England’s national team were nearly a reality.
Representatives for the national football (soccer) federations from Scotland, England and the Netherlands all visited Columbia, scouting the Midlands as a possible host for their team’s training base throughout the World Cup, according to an open records request made by The State.
Looking at the possibility of training at the University of South Carolina, the Netherlands team visited on July 1, 2025, England came in on Oct. 20 and Scotland followed up with trips on Dec. 12 and Jan. 8. Additionally, a university source said there were discussions between USC and a handful of other federations about possibly training in Columbia.
So why didn’t a squad choose South Carolina for this World Cup?
According to USC Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati, a main drawback was that the national teams were adamant about training on two side-by-side fields. Only one location at USC boasts two side-by-side fields ... and those belong to the Gamecocks’ football team.
Especially considering that Williams-Brice is currently under construction, it wasn’t feasible for USC to give up its practice field real estate for two-plus months.
“We knew going into it that their biggest concern before they even set foot in Columbia was like, ‘It’s only one field,’ ” Donati told The State. “So having to kind of overcome that — the rest of our facilities are great. They loved the access to recovery areas, our training rooms, the weight training areas. It’s just the two fields that were really the (main) issue.”
That was likely an issue at a number of other colleges across the country. Aside from the University of Kansas (Algeria), only two other Power-4 schools — Wake Forest (Germany) and Rutgers (Senegal) — are the training bases for teams at this World Cup.
And while there is financial compensation for hosting, it’s far from a cash windfall.
Though the love affair between Lawrence and Algeria has provided the city with more positive publicity than any marketing campaign, Kansas’ Deputy AD Jason Booker was clear that, “This is not a major money-maker for KU by any means.”
“We’re breaking even at best,“ Booker told The Lawrence Times, ”to provide support staff services for six weeks, and the amount of security and things that go into it.”
The interest in Columbia certainly makes sense, especially given South Carolina’s recent soccer hosting duties. Liverpool trained at the Gamecocks’ facilities ahead of their friendly against Manchester United in Williams-Brice Stadium in August 2024. And the Brazilian club Fluminense FC made Columbia its home training base for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
“The World Cup only comes around so often, you know, and to have them here in our backyard would have been really special — for the community, too,” Donati said.
“We saw a little bit of that last year (with Fluminense FC), which was pretty neat,” he added. “It would have been fun for that kind of interaction, and we would have certainly loved to have hosted, but it just wasn’t in the cards.”
This story was originally published June 23, 2026 at 8:22 AM with the headline "World Cup teams considered USC, Columbia as training site. So why didn’t it happen?."
