Argentina has chosen Rock Chalk Park at the University of Kansas for its training base and will stay at the DoubleTree in Lawrence as it prepares for the World Cup groups stage. Algeria, the first team in February to make Kansas its home, will train at the Sporting KC Performance Center and stay at Hotel Savoy in Kansas City.

The two teams will meet in Kansas City on June 16, giving the city an early and direct role in the tournament’s opening stretch. Argentina then plays Jordan in San Francisco on June 22 and Austria in Kansas City on June 27, while Algeria faces Austria in Dallas on June 22 and Jordan in Dallas on June 27.

Those choices matter because a base camp is more than a hotel and a practice field. For every participating nation, it is the main place for pre-tournament training and acclimatisation, built around accommodation, football fields, gyms, recovery facilities, performance evaluation centres and other team needs during the competition.

All 48 teams have now selected a base camp from FIFA’s approved catalogue, a list that mixes local sports complexes, university sports facilities and luxury hotels across the United States, Mexico and Canada. The arrangement is designed to carry teams through the group stage, which runs from June 11 to June 27, with the 32 teams that advance given the option of staying put or moving closer to their next match venue.

The system gives the three host nations a logistical edge that the 45 visiting countries do not have, especially in the days before the June 11 opener in Mexico. But it also exposes a practical divide: some teams are settling early into one place, while others will spend the next month moving between training sites and match cities.

For Argentina and Algeria, Kansas is now the anchor point. If they stay in the tournament past the group stage, that choice will either become a comfort or a constraint, depending on where the bracket sends them next.