{"id":504887,"date":"2026-03-31T08:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504887\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:53:09","slug":"world-cup-how-scotland-settled-on-one-of-mls-best-facilities-as-base-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504887\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup: How Scotland settled on &#8216;one of MLS&#8217; best facilities&#8217; as base camp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In Naismith&#8217;s words, &#8220;world class facilities which are purpose-built for football&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That might sound like the bare minimum, but as he scoured around for the ideal spot, the former international found many were tailored for NFL, basketball or baseball teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You&#8217;re actually having to compromise a wee bit on the actual facilities at some places,&#8221; he explained. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But in Charlotte, they&#8217;ve got the latest technology and recovery. The layout of these are all very much equipped for what we want, what we expect and what the players want day-to-day at their clubs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dicker, who played and coached at Brighton, said the club&#8217;s training ground was one of the most impressive aspects when he made the move across the pond in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve got four grass pitches, a full-size astro pitch and another nine-aside astro,&#8221; he told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;From multiple buildings, meeting rooms, the auditorium, gyms and the canteen, we&#8217;ve got everything pretty close but also in completely separate buildings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Real Madrid have been, Inter Milan were here for the Club World Cup, I think we&#8217;ve had four or five &#8216;big&#8217; clubs come here for pre-season, so it wasn&#8217;t a surprise we had a lot of national teams come and look here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But we have a decent Scottish connection and I think that helps a lot. There&#8217;s a comfort there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The gaffer here obviously knows Steve well, I think they know they&#8217;ll be looked after quite well. He worked with John McGinn and a few other Scotland players, so having that connection, understanding what teams need and being flexible with it, really helps.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Naismith&#8217;s words, &#8220;world class facilities which are purpose-built for football&#8221;. That might sound like the bare minimum,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-504887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}