Team Qatar Arrives in Montecito for FIFA World Cup

This month, the attention of the world turns to North America for the FIFA World Cup 2026. And one of those teams is finding its tactical sanctuary nestled in the foothills of Montecito on the campus of Westmont. The Qatari national team officially selected Westmont as its team base camp training site for the tournament’s pool-play portion. 

Jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., the largest sporting event on the planet will feature 48 nations competing in 104 matches over 39 days. “Each of the teams selected a training site that best suited their needs, considering location, the quality of the training pitch, and available amenities,” said Jeff Raymond, Westmont’s Associate Athletic Director of Compliance, and coordinator with FIFA.

Westmont’s Thorrington Field will serve as the primary training site where Qatar will perfect this low-block system. “It is an honor for our facilities to be chosen as a training site for one of the highest-level sporting events in the world,” said Westmont’s Director of Athletics Robert Ruiz, emphasizing the college’s commitment to providing top-tier service.

Qatar even contracted a company to install one of the best pitches in the country on Thorrington Field, combining the advantages of both natural and synthetic grass with a stitched hybrid grass system. The state-of-the-art field and newly installed exercise stations will remain at the college for the benefit of the college community.

This isn’t Westmont’s first brush with football royalty. A year ago, the Brazilian professional club Botafogo trained on campus ahead of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025. The success of that stint prompted FIFA to encourage a renewed application for 2026, leading to site visits from multiple national federations last fall.

The arrival of the multi-time Asian champions also marks a massive victory for local tourism. “Hosting an international team during their training supports local businesses and hospitality jobs and reflects our community’s longstanding practice of welcoming visitors from around the world,” says Kathy Janega-Dykes, president and CEO of Visit Santa Barbara. “It also reinforces the South Coast’s reputation as a destination capable of hosting high-profile national and international events in the future.”

Qatar is scheduled to fly out of Santa Barbara for its opening group stage match against Switzerland on June 13 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Maroons will return to the tranquility of the Montecito foothills to regroup between subsequent pool-play matches against Canada in Vancouver on June 18 and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Seattle on June 24.

For international football fans, Qatar brings a highly unique, club-like ecosystem to the tournament. Unlike powerhouse nations that draw players from various elite European leagues, virtually the entire Qatari roster operates out of its domestic Stars League, heavily clustered at clubs like Al-Sadd and Al-Duhail. This year-round familiarity grants Qatar a telepathic level of team chemistry. Under this structural unity, they have engineered a lethal, highly disciplined counter-attacking system that completely shocked the region when they captured the 2019 AFC Asian Cup and successfully defended their crown in 2023.

Visit Santa Barbara has been working closely with partners across the region, including Westmont College, to help bring the two international teams, Austria and Qatar, to the Santa Barbara South Coast for FIFA World Cup training.While local fans will surely feel the World Cup buzz mirroring through the community, FIFA regulations dictate that all training sessions at Thorrington Field will be strictly closed to the public.