The World Cup officially starts later today with Mexico taking on South Africa. In honor of the beginning of one of the great showcases in sports, I plan to do a fun little exercise. See, perhaps, the most enjoyable part of the pre-tournament festivities has been seeing where each team has chosen to locate their base camps.
As an American, some of these choices have made me laugh to no end. I will be taking the most recent FIFA World Rankings and giving each team in the top 10 a score from 1-10 on just how funny their base camp location is.
#1 – Argentina – Kansas City, Missouri
I cannot wait for an observant foreign fan to point out the fact that Kansas City is not really in Kansas, but in fact, is in Missouri. This is comedy itself, never mind the fact that Lionel Messi—maybe the most famous player in this tournament—is not based in one of the large, cosmopolitan American cities. Instead, he is in the heartland of the country.
Rating: 9/10
#2 – Spain – Chattanooga, Tennessee
First off, this is easily the funniest location. There frankly isn’t any other one that could dare to rival this. The name “Chattanooga” itself is hilarious—it’s so much fun to say. Even just uttering the word once puts a smile on my face. The location will get made fun off, but I want to give some love to Chattanooga too. It’s surrounded by some beautiful nature and has some gorgeous river views.
Rating: 10/10
#3 – France – Boston, Massachusetts
I’m struggling to think of a connection between France and Boston. It would be a stretch, but you could possibly make some sort of tie back to the American Revolution. There’s not a great link between the two, and likewise, this is a run-of-the-mill base camp selection. But it does earn points because the hypothetical meeting between a Bostonian and a French fan is making me giggle.
Rating: 7/10
#4 – England – Kansas City, Missouri
This is the first repeat of the list, and much of what I said earlier remains true. An interesting wrinkle with the English could be the food scene in Kansas City, which has some of the best barbeque in the country. The English have long been stereotyped as liking bland food and it would be fun to watch them expand their culinary palates by trying some burnt ends
Rating: 8/10
#5 – Portugal – Palm Beach, Florida
This feels more like a vacation than a base camp. It’s like during the last Olympics if the USA Basketball team set up shop in the French Riviera. The weather will likely be beautiful—save for the occasional 15-minute monsoon, which I assume will be a new experience the Portugal squad—but this is a relatively boring pick.
Rating: 4/10
#6 – Brazil – Morristown, New Jersey
Again, somewhat boring. The Brazilians are in a suburb outside of New York City. There’s not much to report or find inherently funny here. Maybe they’ll take a train into the city, but that’s pretty much it.
Rating: 2/10
#7 – Morocco – Basking Ridge, New Jersey
Sadly, we have another New York City suburb here. I will, however, give them and additional point here because there is a large Moroccan population that lives in the New York City Area.
Rating: 3/10
#8 – Netherlands– Kansas City, Missouri
Another repeat, but thankfully, it will be the last one on this list. What I said about Argentina and England also applies to the Netherlands. You never know, there might be some big baseball fans on the team—they could go see the Royals play.
Rating: 7/10
#9 – Germany – Winston-Salem, North Carolina
This is more like it. I love the odd pick here. I am struggling to find a reason why the Germans chose Winston-Salem as their location and that makes it all the better. It’s not even like North Carolina has an exceptionally large German ancestry population either—it’s perfectly weird.
Rating: 8/10
#10 – Belgium – Renton, Washington
This is solid work from the Belgians. Yes, it’s a suburb, but it’s a suburb of Seattle, not New York, so that garners it a few points. And Seattle is probably one of the cooler cities that they could have selected (I mean, have you seen some of the photos of the Seattle area?). Now I just need to Belgian team to catch fish at the Pike Place Fish Market.
Rating: 8/10
