With just a week to go until the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Santa Barbara residents got to look behind the curtain at a Team Qatar training at Westmont College Thursday morning.
The United States, Canada and Mexico will host 48 national teams from around the world for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The final will be held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Of the seven national soccer teams being hosted in California, two have settled right here in Santa Barbara County: Team Qatar in Montecito, at Westmont College, and Team Austria in Goleta at UC Santa Barbara.
Around 400 members of the community showed up to the Westmont training, excited at the chance to see World Cup players in action.
Ricardo Alcaraz, a sixth-grade teacher at Franklin and varsity soccer coach at Santa Barbara High School, was able to organize 150 Franklin students and SBHS soccer players to come watch Team Qatar up close.
Around 70% of the Franklin students who showed up to the training are soccer players, Alcaraz said. Some studied the 2026 FIFA guide extensively, memorizing players’ names so they could call them out for an autograph. And for his high school players, he hopes the training inspires them to keep working hard.
After an hour of some drills, players met the frenzied spectators and signed jerseys and other Team Qatar paraphernalia.
Team Qatar will go head-to-head with Team Switzerland in San Francisco on June 13.
Check out Aston Smith’s video from the event.
