MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — America’s soccer team must be all the rage. Annie Leibovitz was at Monday’s workout for a photo.
Leibovitz spent an hour photographing the four players on the grass field at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Grounds, the practice facility for Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United.
Each player in attendance received a signed book from the 76-year-old photographer. The outlet using this chute has not been disclosed.
Six American players also took photos for VOGUE on the grass field.
Additionally, during this training camp, the players participated in promotional shoots for World Cup rights holders Fox and Telemundo, interviews with U.S. Soccer Federation rights holders TNT Sports, and preparations for World Cup promotions for USSF’s advertising and marketing partners.
Players who did not participate in training camp in November also had to pose for photos wearing Nike’s new World Cup uniforms.
U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino said all the activity took away time to focus on the friendly against Belgium. Saturday 5-2 lossand Tuesday’s game against Portugal.
“We have to be fair to the players because the media demands from the time they arrived were really intense,” he said. “Yesterday, they were not seen at the training ground because they were very tired and wanted to rest a little bit.… The high demand leading up to the World Cup makes it very difficult to prepare for the matches.”
Pochettino compared this training camp to the 2-1 win over Paraguay in Chester, Pennsylvania, the 5-1 loss to Uruguay in Tampa, Florida, the October games, the 1-1 draw with Ecuador in Austin, Texas, and the 2-1 win over Australia in Commerce City, Colorado.
“Whether it was Philadelphia or Tampa, we were just focused on preparing for the game, training and all that. Or before that, we’d do it again in Austin or Denver,” he said. “We didn’t have any meetings because we don’t know where the players are going to go. The other thing is, ‘Where do we go? OK, we can’t talk about anything until the last day. We were in the middle of practice, no, it was tough.’
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