The World Cup is a scant 231 days away. Twenty-three nations have qualified as of this moment, and frantic preparations are already underway.
For the United States, one of those twenty-three qualified countries, "preparations" boils down to: scheduling friendlies to ensure Bob Bradley has the proper forums to evaluate his player pool, securing a training base and accommodations in South Africa that give the US the best chance of playing well, and slipping cash to Sepp Blatter so the Americans get in the seeded pot at December's group draw.
Okay, so they're probably not doing that last one. But the first two are crucial elements of the run-up to any World Cup; as we saw in 2006, Bruce Arena failed to properly test his squad during the warm-up months, and it did them no favors, while the competition for the best training bases is fierce (and for good reason) in a nod to comfort and physical-conditioning.
We'll get to the friendlies later, though it is good to see that the US will take advantage of both of November's FIFA dates by taking on the challenge of playing in Europe, a place they have traditionally struggled.
Training Base & Accommodations
Believe it or not, US Soccer took care of this piece of business way back in June, just before the start of the Confederations Cup; they secured facilities at Southdowns College located in Irene, a town just south of Pretoria and thirty miles from Johannesburg. Southdowns was the training base for Italy during the Confederations Cup, and comes highly rated (by whom, I'm not sure). Included in the package is accommodations at the Irene Country Lodge, a few miles away from the college.
The facilities boast several fields, a gym, and a swimming pool.
One of the acknowledged problems of playing in South Africa is altitude; several World Cup host cities rest near or above a mile high.
A list of the altitudes of the host cities, in feet above sea level:
Johannesburg: 5500
Pretoria: 4400
Cape Town: 130
Duban: 26
Port Elizabeth/Nelson Mandela Bay: 200
Bloemfontein: 4400
Rustenburg: 3780
Nelspruit: 2200
Polokwane: 4050
Pretoria appears to be a nice balance between the ultra-thin air of Johannesburg and the lower altitudes of the coastal cities.
Southdowns can be seen here and here, in photos taken during the Italian National Team's stay there in June.
