Algeria National Football Team Draws 500 Fans at Kansas Hotel
The algeria national football team landed in Lawrence, Kansas, and five to six hundred people were already waiting outside the DoubleTree on its first evening in town. Head coach Vladimir Petković said the scene gave him goosebumps, a quick sign that the World Cup base camp had become a local event, not just a team stopover.
Lawrence Greets Algeria
Lawrence, a college town of about 100,000 in northeastern Kansas, sits a little over 40 miles from Kansas City and about a 40-minute drive from the metro area. Algeria picked the Lawrence DoubleTree as its hotel base camp during the World Cup, and the crowd outside showed how fast the team became part of the city’s daily rhythm.
Petković said, “Seeing five to six hundred people that first evening, fans that were waiting outside our hotel, it really gave me goosebumps.” That reception arrived before Tuesday’s showdown with Argentina, and it matched the unusual scale of the welcome Algeria found in a place that is also home to 27,000 University of Kansas students.
Sajedah Mobilizes Support
Sajedah, a University of Kansas student, helped organize support for Algeria and said she reached 70,000 Algerians through social media. An Instagram account and Facebook page titled “L’Algerie fi Kansas City” helped organize support for the team’s arrival at the airport, while local organizers commissioned artwork and placed signs on lampposts reading “1,2,3, Viva l’Algérie!”
McDonald’s drive-thru windows in Lawrence also posted signs welcoming Algeria and soccer fans to the city. The response mixed campus energy with a wider Kansas City-area Algerian community, including thousands living in the southern suburbs of the metro area.
Rock Chalk Park Swells
Two days after Algeria arrived, hundreds gathered at Kanza Market in Olathe, an Algerian-owned business about 40 minutes from Lawrence. Two days later, thousands showed up at Rock Chalk Park, where Algeria trains daily and where Algerian music played over the loudspeakers for the entire community session.
Stan Herd called Lawrence “a blue city in a red state” and said, “I think everybody’s surprised at it. We’re not.” He described the turnout as a rare fit for the town, where roughly 30% of the University of Kansas student population is minorities or international students, and for a team that has turned hotel arrivals and training sessions into public gatherings.
For Algeria, the welcome has already gone beyond a hotel greeting. The crowd at the DoubleTree, the session at Rock Chalk Park and the gatherings in Olathe turned a World Cup base camp into a local event before the team even got deep into the tournament schedule.
