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Belgium and Egypt pick Pacific Northwest bases for tournament prep

Two football giants converge on Washington state for high-stakes training. Their first clash at Lumen Field could set the tone for the entire tournament.

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The image shows an old photo of a large room with many benches, pillars, arches, and windows. At the bottom of the image, there is text that reads "Grand Lobby, Union Station, Washington, D.C."

Belgium and Egypt pick Pacific Northwest bases for tournament prep

Belgium will be hanging out in the Puget Sound region, while Egypt will be making its home in Eastern Washington.

The announcement of the base camps has not been made official by FIFA, but sources with knowledge of the plans have told the Times that Belgium is expected to use the Sounders training facility in Renton as its base camp for the tournament.

Meanwhile, a note in the agenda of the Spokane City Council on Monday indicated that Egypt will be using the facilities at Gonzaga University as its base camp for the tournament. The Spokesman-Review and KXLY-TV reported about the agenda item.

Both countries being based in the Pacific Northwest make sense.

The Belgians being based in the Seattle area has been rumored about for months. Delegates from the Belgian soccer federation visited following the World Cup draw in December.

Belgium will play in the first match at Lumen Field on June 15 and if it ends up as the winners of Group G, could be playing both the round of 32 and round of 16 games in Seattle as well.

Belgium's other group stage matches are in Inglewood, Calif., and Vancouver, B.C.

Belgium's opponent in that opening match at Lumen Field is Egypt and it appears the team led by Liverpool star Mohamed Salah has settled on spending time in Spokane.

The Spokane City Council agenda for Monday noted that "Spokane has been identified as a host city for Team Egypt," in relation to a request from the Spokane Police Department for the purchase of drones related to security for having a participating country based in the city.

Gonzaga's soccer facility was one of three potential base camp sites in Washington and Oregon designated by FIFA when it released its list of options. The other two were the Sounders facility and the University of Portland.

Egypt will play two group stage matches at Lumen Field, including the June 26 match against Iran. Egypt's other group stage match is in Vancouver, B.C.

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