England players say KC-Prairie Village combo was perfect for World Cup base camp
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- England's central base camp was in Kansas City and hotel was in Prairie Village.
- Players trained at Swope Soccer Village and returned to the Inn at Meadowbrook to recover.
- Players praised the Kansas City base for balancing focused training with relaxed downtime.
Harry Kane scored twice for England in a 4-2 win over Croatia in the World Cup Group L opener for both teams in Dallas. The next day, Kane went to a Royals game.
Coach Thomas Tuchel helped England navigate a nervy 3-2 win over Mexico in a Round of 16 match in Mexico City. Tuchel went for a bike ride in Prairie Village roughly 24 hours later.
Jude Bellingham had a brace Saturday in England’s 2-1 win over Norway in Miami in a quarterfinal match. A day later, Bellingham went to Betty Rae’s for ice cream.
England’s team has traveled a lot of miles to play matches, including the game in Mexico. But each time, the team jetted back to Kansas City to recover at the Inn at Meadowbrook. They say they found a perfect home away from home in Prairie Village.
And the training facilities worked out great, too.
Ahead of each match, the players practiced at Swope Soccer Village the day before, then traveled to the city where they’d play. That was the case again Tuesday as they left for Atlanta and a semifinal match with Argentina after a session at Swope.
England’s players found having their base in Kansas City was perfect.
“I think there’s been a nice balance between real focus, real intensity in training, and then when it’s our downtime, having that relaxed mindset and enjoying with the boys and our families in Kansas City,” midfielder Bukayo Saka said.
The only downside is the distance the team had to travel to get to their matches. But that was a factor for most of the 48 teams, considering the World Cup was held in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
But midfielder Morgan Rogers found Kansas City to be a perfect place to call home for a month.
“The only con I’d say is probably just the travel on the way back,” Rogers said. “You just want to get to your hotel as quick as possible, and sometimes that might take longer than others. But the positives I think are massive. I think it feeling like home, it feeling warm, you can just relax and chill, and you know your surrounding your space and different things that you can get up to and do. And you want to try and make everything your home and as homely as warmly as possible.
“So I think we enjoy getting back and knowing it’s kind of our home for the block (of time). And we can kind of relax and we have our own room. We have our own dining table, we can just really relax and then chill out. So I think it’s really worked well for us. I think we really enjoy the fact that we can always get back to base as quick as possible, and then go from there and kind of get back in our routine and that structure.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2026 at 2:19 PM.
