{"id":239610,"date":"2026-04-08T01:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/239610\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T01:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:03:14","slug":"houston-to-be-dr-congo-base-camp-for-first-world-cup-since-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/239610\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston to be DR Congo base camp for first World Cup since 1974"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) will play its first FIFA World Cup<\/a> match since 1974 when it faces Portugal on June 17. DR Congo’s team will already be stationed in Houston in the weeks before the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DR Congo is expected to use Houston as its base camp<\/a> for the World Cup, Houston World Cup Committee President Chris\u00a0Canetti told Chron<\/a> on Tuesday. An official announcement is expected early next week. DR Congo will practice and train at south Houston’s SaberCats Stadium, the former home of Houston’s\u00a0Major League Rugby team. Houston is now the fourth Texas city to serve as a base camp, joining Austin (hosting Saudi Arabia),\u00a0Frisco (Sweden) and Mansfield (Czech Republic).\u00a0<\/p>\n

“All signs are pointing to the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Canetti said. “Right now we’re working with FIFA and all the different representatives to put that to bed, but that’s the direction this looks like that’s heading.”<\/p>\n

DR Congo qualified for the World Cup on March 31 in a win over Jamaica, a match held at Estadio Akron in Guadalajara, Mexico. Representatives for DR Congo then traveled to Houston, where they met with the Houston Host Committee. Houston’s infrastructure impressed the DR Congo delegation, who then agreed to train and stay in Houston before the nation’s historic return to the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They were here last week on a site visit,” Canetti said. “Our meetings were very, very focused on the facility and seeing the base camp and the hotel and things of that nature. They haven’t been to the World Cup in 50-some-odd years when they were Zaire. So there’s a real compelling story there, and there are some interesting ties to our community that we’ll find.”<\/p>\n

Players and staff members for DR Congo already have their World Cup lodging set at a Houston hotel, per Canetti. The specific hotel was not disclosed for safety and security purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) will play its first FIFA World Cup match since 1974…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[16469,1704,89282,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-239610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-chronsports","9":"tag-chronstaff","10":"tag-chronworldcup","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-headlines","13":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}