The Algeria national soccer team has unexpectedly galvanized the college town of Lawrence, Kansas, establishing a deeply supportive community bond at their World Cup base camp ahead of an upcoming match against Argentina on Tuesday.
As reported by The Guardian, local organizers and residents in the city of nearly 100,000 people accommodated the team at a local hotel and organized multiple community welcomes to embrace the international squad.
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Community Welcomes and Coach's Reaction
“Seeing five to six hundred people that first evening, fans that were waiting outside our hotel, it really gave me goosebumps,” said Valdimir Petković, Algeria head coach.
The head coach noted that numerous American citizens wore team scarves and showed immense enthusiasm to share the experience with the roster during their scheduled public events.
“We saw that there were so many US citizens who had scarves for us,” said Petković.
“They showed so much support, and they really wanted to celebrate this moment with our team.”
Petković expressed hope that the squad would perform admirably on and off the field to return the goodwill shown by the Kansas community.
“I hope that we can behave in the right way in terms of the way that we conduct ourselves on and off the pitch, that we can certainly give a positive response to absolutely everyone,” said Petković.
“But, I hope that we can make it through to the knockout stage and maybe everyone from Kansas can travel with us to another city.”
