Bafana Bafana’s training base for the 2026 Fifa World Cup will be in Pachuca, Mexico, the South African Football Association (Safa) announced on Thursday.
Pachuca is about 95km outside Mexico City, where Bafana meet the co-hosts at the iconic 87,000-seat Etadio Azteca in the World Cup’s opening game on June 11.
It is about 930km south by road, or a one-and-a-half-hour flight, from Guadalupe, Mexico, where South Africa meet South Korea in their third Group A game on June 24.
Bafana’s second match is on June 18 against a Uefa Path D playoff winner in Atlanta, Georgia, which is about a four-hour flight from Mexico City.
“Safa has confirmed that Bafana Bafana will be based in Pachuca, Mexico,” the association said. “The team will train at the Universidad del Futbol and coach Hugo Broos is happy with the facilities. The South African senior men’s team will stay at Camino Real Pachuca Hotel, which is a few kilometres away from Pachuca.”
Broos — speaking in Pachuca on Thursday, where Safa officials concluded the deal for Bafana’s training base — said he is happy to be based so close to Mexico City, partly for comfortable travel purposes for Bafana’s crucial opening game. Also, notably, the venue will help South Africa adjust to the high altitude for the clash against the hosts.
Mexico City sits at 2,240m above sea level, higher than Johannesburg (1,750m), where the altitude is a factor for sports teams. Pachuca sits at 2,430m.
“Once the composition of the group was known I knew the game against Mexico should be a special game for us. Not because it’s Mexico but because we have to play that game at altitude,” Broos said.
“In 1986 I was here with Belgium’s national team as a player [in that year’s World Cup in Mexico], so I knew and was experienced that before [Bafana] play that game against Mexico we need a high-altitude camp.
“I met the people from Pachuca in Washington already [at the 2026 World Cup final draw on December 5 last year] and they proposed that we come here. I said, ‘OK, we’ll see in the next weeks what we are going to do, what the best options are, and we will let you know’.
I’m very pleased with the facilities, the two nice pitches where we can train, the fitness room, the hospital, everything we need to have a very good preparation for that match.
— Hugo Broos
“There were a few other options. But very important for me was we should already be in Mexico and start the high-altitude camp and not having to do a trip again from I don’t know where to come here to Mexico a few days before the game.”
The Universidad del Futbol y Ciencias del Deporte, according to Google AI, has “recently renovated professional football pitches, a high-performance gym and access to the Center of Medical Excellence, which is Fifa-certified.”
Broos said he “wanted to also see the facilities” in Pachuca in person before concluding the training base.
“That’s why yesterday [Wednesday] we had the visit to the location here at the university and I’m very pleased with the facilities, the two nice pitches where we can train, the fitness room, the hospital, everything we need to have a very good preparation for that match.
“That’s why we decided yesterday already, together with my team manager [Vincent Tseka] that this will be our home and our base camp for the World Cup.”
Broos said he hopes Bafana will arrive in Pachuca “maybe on May 31 but certainly by June 1 because we need 10 days to adapt to the altitude and also the jet lag from eight hours’ difference with South Africa”.
He said the “reception and attention” the Bafana delegation received “makes me happy too”.
The starting match of the 2026 World Cup is a replay of the first game when South Africa hosted the 2010 tournament and played Mexico in the opener at FNB Stadium.
The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by Mexico, the US and Canada, will be the first 48-team global showpiece, expanded from the previous 32.
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