Marruecos elige New Jersey como base para el Mundial 2026

Morocco chose a renovated New Jersey campus with two international-standard grass pitches and a dedicated athletics center for its World Cup command post, turning The Pingry School in Basking Ridge into the Atlas Lions’ tournament headquarters. The setup goes beyond a locker room: it will house preparation, recovery and tactical planning for the duration of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Governor Mikie Sherrill announced the base camp on May 5 alongside Moroccan Ambassador Youssef Amrani and Alex Lasry, the chief executive of the New York/New Jersey host committee. New Jersey said it is home to almost 10,000 residents of Moroccan descent, and state officials have framed Morocco’s presence as a chance to project New Jersey to a global audience while the region hosts one of the tournament’s marquee teams.

The choice also reflects how modern national teams now treat off-field infrastructure as a performance tool. Pingry was renovated in 2025, giving Morocco a training environment built to international standards, and the site already carries World Cup history: Italy used it as a training base during the 1994 tournament. Morocco’s players will stay at The Somerset Hills Hotel in Warren, about five minutes from campus, reducing travel time and keeping the squad close to daily routines.

On the field, the timetable is unforgiving. Morocco opened against Brazil on June 13 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, then were set to play Scotland on June 19 in Boston and Haiti on June 24 in Atlanta. FIFA says Morocco entered its seventh World Cup and third straight appearance after rewriting its own history in Qatar 2022, when it became the first African team to reach a semifinal and finished fourth.

Head coach Mohamed Ouahbi, who replaced Walid Regragui in March, announced his 26-man squad on May 26. Nine players from the Qatar 2022 semifinal team returned, including Yassine Bounou, Nayef Aguerd, Sofyan Amrabat and Achraf Hakimi. That continuity, paired with a carefully chosen base in New Jersey, shows how elite teams now build for tournaments: not only through talent on the pitch, but through every detail around it.