Training Sites to Be Announced : Soccer: Oxnard College a likely facility for Cameroon World Cup team.
The soccer team from Cameroon, one of three African nations that will participate in this summer’s World Cup, is expected to use Oxnard College as a training site during first-stage competition in the tournament.
The World Cup Organizing Committee this week officially will announce team training sites, including four in Southern California.
The committee already has submitted to FIFA, the sport’s worldwide governing body, a list of the training sites selected by the competing countries, and the committee is awaiting FIFA approval.
According to an informed source, Colombia will train at Cal State Fullerton, Sweden at UC Irvine and Romania at Loyola Marymount. Those three teams, Cameroon and the United States will play first-stage matches at the Rose Bowl beginning in mid-June. The U.S. team will continue to train at its Mission Viejo complex.
Cameroon and Colombia also will play first-stage matches at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, and the United States, Sweden and Romania also will play at the Pontiac Silverdome outside Detroit.
The team from Cameroon, known as the Indomitable Lions, will play in Group B during the first stage with Brazil, Russia and Sweden. The United States, Romania, Colombia and Switzerland will play in Group A.
Representatives of the four foreign teams that will be based in the Southland toured the training sites in late December and told the organizing committee which they preferred.
“None of the three delegations that visited us seemed to have the same priorities,” said Jorge Brescia, Oxnard College men’s soccer coach. “One team placed more importance on the swimming pool, another was more interested in the tennis courts.”
Brescia, a former player and coach in his native Argentina, is a member of the group that made its pitch to the World Cup Organizing Committee on the school’s behalf.
He said the training site at Oxnard will feature two adjacent world-class soccer fields with Bermuda turf. One will have bleachers and both will be fenced. School officials hope to have lights installed on at least one of the fields, although none of the teams that inspected the facilities requested lighting. The Cameroon team would stay at an Oxnard hotel.
Brescia said the Oxnard group is trying to raise construction funds through the private sector, although the city of Oxnard has guaranteed $60,000 toward the project.
The site must be ready by late May, when the teams are scheduled to start arriving in the United States. After the monthlong 24-team tournament concludes with the championship match at the Rose Bowl on July 17, the Oxnard fields will be used by local teams and leagues, Brescia said.
