Germany is Building Its Own Base Camp for the World Cup

Just how confident is Germany heading into the 2014 World Cup? Confident enough to build its own training camp/village/hotel in the Brazilian state of Bahia. The location is close enough to the nearest airport so that the German team will only be a two hour flight from its three group stage matches, including a June 26 showdown with the U.S. in Recife.

From the AP the compound: “will consist of 14 two-story houses for the players and team officials. A media center and a practice field will be nearby.” Adding a mysterious wrinkle, the facility is being paid for by “an unidentified German industrialist family.”

Seems like a great way to spend a boatload of Euros, since it’ll be used for all of about six weeks. Anything it takes so Marco Reus and Mario Goetze can take some awesome bro selfies by the pool, right?

One other thing to mention here. It’s fun, from an American sports fan perspective, to hear all the complaints emanating from Europe about traveling a couple hours between sites for the games in Brazil for the tournament. They make it out that a two-hour flight is the end of the world. Here’s what German team manager Oliver Bierhoff said:

"“We saw at the previous World Cup in 2010 that short distances between team headquarters, training pitches and media centre are crucial for everyone involved,” the team manager Oliver Bierhoff said."

It’d be fun to see how they’d cope with the travel schedule for baseball or the NBA. Perhaps that will be a hidden advantage for Jurgen Klinsmann’s team since most players will be acclimated to long bus rides or flights from playing in MLS or traversing the Atlantic often during International breaks. Considering how tough the group will be, any little thing helps.