A place called home: US Soccer’s hope for the future

ATLANTA – US Soccer believes a new state-of-the-art training centre and finally having a permanent home can put it on equal footing with football’s powerhouses in the years ahead, as it looks to the future after an early end to their World Cup adventure.

Excitement and enthusiasm turned to familiar disappointment for American fans, as the team topped their group and reached the last 16 only to exit the tournament with a 4-1 defeat by Belgium.

The US Soccer National Training Center in Fayetteville, just south of Atlanta, opened in May in time for World Cup preparations, relocating its headquarters and almost 400 employees from Chicago.

“This is the first time US Soccer has ever owned a blade of grass,” the centre’s general manager Tom Norton said. “It’s an opportunity for us to bring all of our operation under one roof together so we can push our game to the next level.”

The centre is the latest stage of businessman Arthur Blank’s quest to turn Atlanta into the country’s football capital.

The owner of the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons, the 83-year-old poured US$50 million (S$64.6 million) into the project and is also the engine behind the city’s Major League Soccer franchise Atlanta United. He will be bringing a National Women’s Soccer League team to the region in 2028 as well.

The centre features 17 outdoor playing surfaces, including 13 regulation-size natural grass pitches, along with two artificial turf fields, the Nike High Performance Gym, and dining and nutrition areas.

All 27 US national teams will be catered for at the 81ha facility, but there are plans to involve others.

“We’re not going to limit what we’re working with here,” Norton said.

“We’re going to make sure that the rest of the soccer world can be welcomed here and grow the game together. The doors are open to the entire soccer community.”

US Under-20 women’s head coach Vicky Jepson said the sprawling campus was one of the best in the world and “miles better” than St George’s Park where national teams in her native England train together.

Men’s football has always struggled for attention in a crowded US sports market, but hosting the World Cup will hopefully leave a legacy of more than just good memories, US Soccer’s chief operating officer Dan Helfrich told Reuters.

“The World Cup leaves behind aspiration and ambition for the sport in our country,” he said.

“The fact that the men’s team trained here, that the community got to experience the men’s team being here before they went off to the West Coast to play, all of that has a huge impact.

“We certainly believe that there are six-, eight- and 10-year-olds whose desire to either start in the sport or continue in the sport or set their heights higher for their own career has changed fundamentally.”

Following the US team’s World Cup exit, much of the debate has centred on those children and how so many are priced out of the game by the pay-to-play model.

Unless that changes, the new centre may still miss out on a deep well of undiscovered talent.

REUTERS