USSF targets national training facility by 2026

Yeah I'm not sure what the purpose of this is regarding the senior teams. The whole flight time issue only really matters for quick two-match windows, and for those they should train wherever the games are. For January camp, is this really much better than Carson? They're not going to spend all this money just for a January camp facility.

If they're looking to combine this with a new HQ to replace Chicago and a facility for more extended youth team activities, that's a different story. Just doesn't seem this adds much benefit for senior MNT (or WNT) activities.

 

DFW also has plenty of land to build on. PGA just built their new headquarters in Frisco with big new course.

 

Yes Universal is going to Frisco. However it's universal kids and much much smaller.

 

+ Rangers AAA, Stars practice facility and Mavericks D League team. Apparently several big Cali companies are moving their headquarters there.

Frisco gamed the system on financing somehow using / including schools in how they finance things. The state grandfathered them in but has stopped any city that wasn't already doing it. Not sure if Frisco is allowed new projects using it. Seems like maybe since they keep adding scalps.

 

I think the idea is it could be a staging ground for road games in CONCACAF. The team always meets somewhere and trains for a few days before they fly to whatever road location they are going to. Klinsmann used to have the team meet up in Florida first, and Berhalter would have them meet up at whatever the site of the first home game if that window was going to be. But if you had the training site in Miami for instance, the team could fly there and train in advance of a road qualifier for instance.

There are usually also long camps in the lead up of the World Cup (when it's held in the summer). Usually like 3-4 weeks and you would in theory hold those camps at this training center. And you probably have similar but shorter camps for the Copa America and Gold Cup.

I don't think we need the training center because there are plenty of good training facilities in the US, but if spend so much time building it, you pretty much have to use it.

 

I'm actually friends with Todd Fouche who's quoted in this article, but it explains in more detail what Frisco has done and how it's done it.

they didn't really "game" anything.

Again, without copying and pasting everything go to the link and scroll down about half way and then it will lay out what they are doing.

https://www.dmagazine.com/publicati...uary/frisco-sports-city-usa-cowboys-star-pga/


I will say, we moved from Coppell to Frisco in 2009 and built a home. We sold it in 2020 and moved home to Edmond, OK. In that 11 years I can say my home value increased 2.3x in value. Crazy really.

I think Frisco was around 100k or so in 2009. Now it's close to 200k people with companies moving into Frisco or within a mile of it's borders constantly, not to mention all the sports facilities and teams, bowl games, etc.

 

I used gaming because they figured out kind of a loophole and because it was shut down later. I'm a big fan of how they do things.

 

It appears the training center will be in Atlanta

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...-funding-arthur-m-blank-grow-soccer-ecosystem

 

Atlanta checks a lot of boxes. With so many player's based in Europe it's smart to pick and east coast spot. It's also a good idea not to go to far north where cold weather would affect practices. So Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas were the obvious choices. With $50 mil in free money Georgia moved to the front of the line. They also have an airport that will make it an easy place to get to.

 

Since Arthur Blank is paying for it, I wonder if it will be called the Home Depot National Training Center.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jul-09-sp-naming09-story.html

 

I thought it was going to be Atlanta and I didn't even incorporate Mr. Home Depot paying for it.

If we are limited to the East Coast because of flight times, it's the best spot. Incredibly accessible, decent weather, not ridiculous land costs, good support for soccer, diverse economy that will serve as an attractive destination for employees.

 

The only real drawbacks are bad traffic and a lot of heat and humidity during the summer. But that can certainly apply to a lot of locations. It makes the most sense, by far, in terms of the total package for all reasons mentioned.

I would imagine part of this would be an indoor facility for training and perhaps even some YNT games during times when weather would not be conducive to outdoor matches.

A far less important reason for Atlanta is that’s where PRO has its VAR headquarters. I would imagine that the US Soccer/PRO referee community would use this facility like England’s PGMOL uses St. George’s Park for their training.

 

Still not sure how much "flight time" is an important factor here, with most senior national team activity being one week/two match windows. For example, if this existed currently, would it make sense go there for any of the fall windows (Cincinnati/St. Paul, Hartford/Nashville, Austin/somewhere away)? That's adding a flight when they can just go to the cities where they need to be. But this is an ambitious project targeted for a lot of stuff that's not the senior teams, and having a major airport hub is important for that.

I don't see a projected opening date in the press release--will this be open in time for the World Cup? I'd guess it would be the team's base camp if it's ready by then.

 

To be fair, I don’t think this will be used a great deal by the senior team. Likely for training camps like the one in January. But when there is a window like just completed, the senior team will train at the MLS facility. Same with the women’s team using NWSL facilities (but depending on the quality of that facility, maybe they would use this site more). This will be much more for all of the other teams as mentioned in the article. I’d also imagine that in addition to the teams mentioned, there will also be training areas for sports like futsal and beach soccer.

I do think this is a very good thing for US Soccer. Having one center of excellence for soccer-related items will scale things well. We will see how well this eventually gets executed.

 

I think it does because cities like Austin don't have big international airports and there would be an additional flight anyway. It can always be bypassed but east coast is less hours than midwest and a lot less that the west coast. S California has been the place for years but there weren't nearly as many Euro players back then. Just look at the hubbub some raised on getting players back instead of playing the second game in this window and consider how much longer those flights would have been with a Portland or LA game.

 

It's still easier to go straight to a connecting flight to Austin instead of making a 1-2 day pitstop in Atlanta when players are going from club matches in Europe on Saturday/Sunday to an international match in Austin on Thursday.

That's more a question of game site selection, which has to be managed regardless of where the training center is.

 

My guess is they would use it for December/January camps, for pre tournament camps (whether it’s the World Cup, Copa America, Gold Cup, and Nations League Finals), and as a staging ground when we have windows where our first qualifier or Nations League games are on the road.

 

There's a big financial benefit to this whole thing because they got a charitable donation to fund most or all it. And so every camp they spend paying a team to practice on their fields is basically money they really don't need to spend.

Obviously when camp is a couple of days, the extra travel day lost will stop a bit of that, but if the game is in Orlando or Nashville or Charlotte, that charter flight is like 40 minutes and you can walk on / walk off the tarmac. You literally don't need to go until gameday. Even really DC as well.

And Atlanta is a pretty good international location as well.

 

ATL is less than three hours by plane to every city from Boston to Miami to Austin to Minneapolis. You have to get to Denver before you are over three hours. Las Vegas and LA are around 4.5 hours. Seattle and Portland are the cities that would be more than five hours.

It's less that three hours to Toronto and Kingston. It's less than four to all the other CONCACAF cities. The inconvenience of an extra flight of that length can more than be made up for by having a regular training camp site and routine.

 

Atlanta is definitely a city where there’s a ton of non stop flights available from every manner of destination.

Particularly it being the HQ for Delta, anywhere they fly in the world they have flights to and from Atlanta.

I myself have connected through Atlanta countless times when I’ve had international travel.

It’s definitely logistics wise an easy location for our players in Europe to get to.

It is in fact the busiest airport in the world and has been for every year except for one since 1998.

 

austin would be terrible.

1. It's hot as crap half the time and humid
2. airport is not good
3. traffic is ridiculous for a smaller metroplex


I kind of think that Northern VA (DC) or outside of Charlotte would be great. Major hubs for airlines so that's big and weather is more moderate.

I've lived in Charlotte, Dallas, DC and Austin. I'd go for the Charlotte area. I've also lived in San Diego. Great place great weather, but an extra 4+ hrs from east coast for the Europe based guys.

 

Atlanta's fine.

Let's face. No matter where they put it, people here would bitch.

Why Atlanta? Because Arthur Blank is putting up $50 million. That's why.
If Dan Hunt paid for it, it would be in Frisco.

 

imagine this had already happened. arena, talking to a young giuseppe rossi, "so, do you like...strippers?"

everything could have been different.

 

One question I guess too is would this facility include a full size indoor facility too. If so then it wouldn't matter really on weather. nearly every college football team has one. This is Oklahoma's for example. Full size field, and the one they have allows full punting and such, obviously don't need that height for soccer, but still these are all over the country.
You would just make it a bit wider and longer due to the size of a soccer field vs a football field, but that's not a hard thing.