In the shadows of Tennessee’s Signal and Lookout mountains, 8-year-old Beckham waited for more than three hours, balancing on a fence and clutching a handwritten note. spain national team To appear.
“I love you and I respect you,” the note was addressed to Pedri and Lamine Yamal read. “Thank you for coming to my city. I hope you win the World Cup.”
His eyes widened as the players ran onto the field.
“Dad, it’s real,” he whispered.
The sight was equally incredible for his father, Jackson McClure. He’s a Marine Corps veteran who grew up playing soccer in goal post trash cans in Chattanooga and now coaches hundreds of local kids and named his first child after one of the sport’s greatest stars. david beckham.
This summer marks the 32nd year since it was first held in the United States. The world’s largest sports tournament — Chattanooga is one of several cities set up as a base camp for the World Cup, where visiting teams will live and train between games.
Spain, that is Be one of the favorites to win the tournamentset up camp at a boarding school along the Tennessee River in Chattanooga. Iraq is a mountain resort city in West Virginia with fewer than 3,000 residents. And Germany is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where cobblestone streets and tobacco warehouses share space with German flags and television crews.
Showcasing Southern Hospitality
The 150-foot underground waterfall beneath Lookout Mountain was lit up in red, and the Embassy Suites in downtown Chattanooga, where the Spanish team is staying, was decorated with Spain’s red and yellow flag, known as “La Rosiguarda.” When the team arrived at the Chattanooga airport, La Roja was greeted by a huge banner featuring the Spanish player and proclaiming “Bienvenidos a Chattanooga.”
Chattanoogan native Skip Schwartz said so many people were wearing Spanish jerseys that he “couldn’t tell if they were coming from Spain just to see it or if they were locals jumping on the La Roja bandwagon.”
About 25,000 people entered a lottery to win 1,000 tickets to watch the Spanish team practice at Baylor School, a 600-acre (240-hectare) private academy for students in grades six through 12.
Meanwhile, tickets to watch Germany practice at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem sold out in four minutes.
“It’s so fun to see people start caring about things they didn’t care about before,” said Savannah Leahy, owner of Small Batch Beer Company, a soccer bar in downtown Winston-Salem. The bar has extended its viewing party hours and created a German-inspired menu including schnitzel sandwiches and sauerbraten for Germany’s opening game.
“People are starting to feel like they’re home even when they’re not home,” Lahey said.
In Greenbrier, West Virginia, historic resort The country has hosted presidents and foreign leaders, and the Iraqi flag flew alongside the American flag as the national team arrived at its World Cup training camp.
Baylor offers great soccer facilities
Teams will choose from FIFA-approved base camps across North America, with the top nations selected first. Spain chose Chattanooga over larger cities like Chicago or Los Angeles and then worked with Baylor to establish a sprawling headquarters around its practice and media facilities.
FIFA inspectors evaluated Baylor’s facilities, including the condition of the turf and drainage and irrigation systems, said Sam Green, the school’s director of operations and systems. Baylor players practiced on artificial turf this spring to protect Spain’s field, a sacrifice Green said the seniors accepted without complaint.
Two grass pitches hidden behind trees form the focal point of Spain’s daily training. The airport and downtown hotels are minutes away. atlantaThe location where Spain will play their two group stage matches is within easy reach. After the Spanish national team’s first official training session, the players reportedly went straight to the campus pool, where they had a good time swimming and lying down before returning to training.
Spain’s selection makes sense for Schwartz, who currently serves on Baylor’s board of directors. That’s because when Schwartz played football at Baylor in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he and his teammates helped lay Bermuda turf on the new football field. That field has since been replaced with an indoor tennis facility that serves as the Spanish media center, but the school now has three soccer fields and one of the best soccer programs in the area.
“If someone had told me back then that 40 years from now Spain would be using this campus as a World Cup base, I wouldn’t have even bothered to understand it,” he says.
“Without a doubt, I’m rooting for Spain.”
Tina Ankar, a first-generation Palestinian American, said she became a soccer fan because of the World Cup and her boyfriend, who grew up watching games with his Mexican family. At Spain’s open practice, hundreds of fans chanted “Vamos, España!” After almost every touch. Ankar found himself being engulfed by energy.
“I have to see these people through to the end,” she said. “Now there are people outside of America that I can really support.”
Before Spain’s first public practice, Baylor students slipped into the locker room, took photos of the stalls newly plastered with the names of Spain’s stars, and debated which player would take over “their” locker.
“I sat in that locker room almost every day this spring,” said 17-year-old midfielder and graduate Heath Tekasiriwan.
Tekashiriwan is a Filipino-American and lifelong fan of Lionel Messi. Argentina in 2022said there was no question who he would support this summer.
“Without a doubt, I’m rooting for Spain,” he said. “When you literally see players like Pedri, Gabi and Lamine Yamal right in front of your eyes, you can’t help but root for them.”
Goaltender Matthew Ramirez commutes an hour each way from Calhoun, Georgia, to Baylor. He grew up watching Barcelona with his father, who immigrated from Guatemala, and will be watching Spain’s World Cup games over Carne Asada with family and friends.
After practice, 18-year-old Yamal signed the 16-year-old goalkeeper’s custom Barcelona jersey. “When I watch you play, I feel happy,” Ramirez told his star player in Spanish.
Young fans take selfies and dream about superheroes
Back in Chattanooga, Beckham collects signatures, takes selfies with players, and heads home wearing the Spain jersey his father said he had slept in the night before.
According to his father, Beckham kept repeating, “Wait, Dad. They’re real. Ramin Yamal is real. I thought he was like a superhero. He’s on TV.”
Chattanooga has come a long way since the neighborhood games McClure remembers. He currently coaches soccer for about 850 children, and there are professional men’s and women’s teams in the city.
“They could have gone anywhere in this country and they chose us,” McClure said of Spain.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup
