dan rutstein

With its World Cup opener just four days away, the U.S. team moved into its temporary home in Irvine on Monday, where the players found thousands of new Southern California neighbors waiting in line to watch them kick a ball.

After the U.S. announced that Orange County Great Park would be its base for at least the group stage of the tournament, the City of Irvine held a raffle for passes to see the team train in its only public workout.

Thirty-two thousand people applied and 5,500 received access on a warm Monday morning to watch the team rush through a light 45-minute practice that was notable primarily because it was the first in which injured center back Chris Richards was fully involved. Richards tore two ligaments in his left ankle playing for Crystal Palace, his English club team, on May 17 and hadn’t played or fully trained since. The team is rushing to get him ready in the hopes he can play at some point in the three-game group stage.

But the practice was also notable because it was the first at Championship Soccer Stadium, about 50 miles southeast of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the U.S. will open its World Cup on Friday against Paraguay.

“[The] environment and facilities are crazy. It’s more than we expect,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said of the venue. “We are so grateful.”

Championship Soccer Stadium is owned and managed by the city, which has leased it to the Orange County Soccer Club of the second-tier USL Championship. But the club was temporarily evicted in late April to make space for the national team — which is just fine with them.

U.S. men’s soccer player Chris Richards autographs the shirt of a young fan during a team practice Monday.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

“How can you not be excited about the host nation training in your facility?” said Dan Rutstein, president of business operations of the Orange County club.

“We’re proud to be associated with the U.S. national team. We wouldn’t want to ever block anything, even if we could.”

(And they couldn’t, the city said.)

The Great Park is a sprawling 500-acre complex built on the site of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, which closed in 1999 after 56 years training pilots for conflicts from World War II through the first Gulf War. In 2001, voters approved a proposal to convert the space into a public park and nature preserve, one which now includes, among other things, five sand volleyball courts, four basketball courts, 25 tennis courts, 12 softball and baseball fields, the ice arena where the Ducks practice and 25 soccer fields, including the pristine one FIFA just installed inside the 5,500-seat stadium.

“The idea was that this would be a quality facility, a great park that we hope will rival San Diego’s Balboa Park and other great parks across the country,” Irvine mayor Larry Agran said. “It took a lot of nurturing, a lot of time, a lot of work.”

Bringing the World Cup — or at least a World Cup team — to Irvine also took a lot of time and work. Agran said the city put out feelers about hosting a training base five years ago and made the first cut in 2024 when the Great Park was placed on a list of options distributed to tournament qualifiers.

Over the next two years, Rutstein said, about a dozen national teams sent representatives to have a look while Sam Zapatka, the operations manager of the USMNT, said he scouted 27 facilities from Seattle to San Diego. After his first visit to the Great Park, however, he said he stopped looking and in March, the team announced it would train in Irvine.

On Monday, when the players filed out of the stadium’s locker room, which FIFA expanded and upgraded, they were greeted by rhythmic clapping and chants of “USA! USA!”

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1. U.S. men’s soccer player Weston McKennie takes part in a training session at Orange County Great Park. (Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times) 2. (Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times) 3. U.S. men’s national soccer team coach Mauricio Pochettino waves to fans attending practice on Monday. 4. Pochettino speaks to players after drills at Orange County Great Park on Monday. (Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“I think we’ve all been, I wouldn’t say overwhelmed, but possibly surprised by the excitement and the buzz,” said captain Tim Ream, who led the team onto the field. “Pulling up here with 5,500 fans ready to watch a training session is incredible.

“We get to train in an actual stadium with a good pitch. The support, really, from all the kids out there is amazing. You want to feel like you have a good home base, right? So really, we’re looking forward to being here.”

Especially after 5,000 of your neighbors show up for the housewarming party.

On a recent spring morning, Championship Soccer Stadium, which sits in a corner of the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, was quiet and empty save for the dozen sprinklers quenching a newly laid grass carpet.

Normally the well-used stadium is a buzz of activity. But its main tenant, the Orange County Soccer Club, which plays in the second-division USL Championship, has been temporarily evicted, left to train in the nearby park and play its final home game before the World Cup at Eddie West Field in Santa Ana, 12 miles away. (Not that it was necessarily a bad thing since the club drew a home-record crowd of 7,651 to its 3-2 win over Oakland on Saturday, which allowed it to hold onto second place in the Western Conference table.)

During the next month, the nine-year-old venue will have just one occupant, the U.S. national soccer team, which has chosen the stadium as its main training base for the World Cup. The temporary change in ownership is heralded by a giant orange orb the size of a hot-air balloon, adorned with the U.S. Soccer logo and tethered to a rise just outside the stadium.

Why and how the federation wound up in Irvine is unknown; U.S. Soccer declined to respond to multiple requests for comment. But it’s safe to say location was a factor since the Orange County Great Park is the closest World Cup training base to SoFi Stadium, where the U.S. will play two of its three group-stage games.

Crews work to prepare the training area for the U.S. soccer team at Championship Soccer Stadium in Irvine.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

The U.S. team’s first training session there, on June 8, will be the only practice open to the public. Four days later, the team will open its World Cup schedule against Paraguay in Inglewood, a 45-mile bus ride away. The Americans are one of seven World Cup teams to choose base camps in California. Australia and Paraguay will train in the Bay Area; Switzerland and New Zealand will be in San Diego; and Austria and Qatar will stay in Santa Barbara.

For the Orange County Soccer Club, which has just a humble spot on the U.S. soccer landscape, even a temporary association with the World Cup and the national team is worth celebrating.

“How can you not be excited about the host nation training in your facility when you are a club who prides itself on developing young talent,” said Dan Rutstein, the team’s president of business operations. “Sharing a stadium with the U.S. national team is a great opportunity.”

One that comes with great perks. FIFA, which vetted the location for World Cup teams a couple of years ago, has replaced the stadium’s grass field with one the Orange County team could never have paid for itself and will install security fencing in the next week or so, as it will at all 48 tournament training fields. U.S. Soccer is also expanding and improving the team’s tiny locker room and adding a media work room.

Alvaro Leon, Brian Biniasz, and Joesph Frausto install rubber flooring in the U.S. Soccer World Cup locker room.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

The Orange County Soccer Club is paying for those perks with a little inconvenience, however. The players will have to dress at home for practice, which will be held in the adjoining park. And the club’s next six games will all be on the road. The team also had to take down any signs or placards that mentioned the Orange County Soccer Club; they were replaced with USMNT signage.

“It’s their stadium now,” Rutstein said.

“If you look at what the club is trying to achieve and where we are as an organization, any short-term pain is more than offset by the medium- and long-term benefits of being associated with the World Cup and the U.S. national team,” he added.

The team is trying to sell naming rights to the stadium, for example, and its association with the national team and the World Cup could be a big help in that.

When FIFA first released potential World Cup training sites two years ago, Championship Soccer Stadium was on the list and Rutstein said about a dozen national teams sent representatives to have a look. How many bid on the site is unknown but FIFA rules say if two or more teams make a claim on the same venue, the team with the lowest FIFA world ranking gets first dibs.

The U.S. is ranked 16th, which clearly gave it an edge.

An aerial view of crews preparing the training area for the U.S. soccer team at Championship Soccer Stadium in Irvine.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Besides, Orange County is no stranger to world-class soccer. The only other time the World Cup was hosted in the U.S., in 1994, the American team trained in Mission Viejo. And when European champion Paris Saint-Germain came to Southern California for last summer’s Club World Cup, it trained at UC Irvine.

“Being away from the glare of a big city is appealing,” Rutstein said.

“The World Cup is going to do wonders for soccer in this country, as it did over 30 years ago,” he continued. “And we’re excited to make the most of that growth.”