The Argentine national team, current World and American champions, has chosen the province of Alicante as its base of operations during the November “break” for international matches. Since Monday, November 10, the team led by Lionel Scaloni, with its captain Leo Messi at the head, is staying in the town of Algorfa, in the Vega Baja.
The decision to set up camp in Spain, far from being casual, responds to a key logistical strategy. Alicante serves as an ideal “meeting point” for most of the internationals, who play for European clubs.
This choice avoids the enormous expense of individual trips directly to Angola, allowing the squad to meet in an accessible destination with an optimal Mediterranean climate for training in autumn, far from the cold of other parts of Europe.
This is La Finca Resort, Argentina’s center of operations
The second pillar of the decision is the facilities. The place chosen is La Finca Resort, a five-star luxury resort considered a “paradise” in the interior of the Costa Blanca, in Algorfa, 30 minutes from the coast of Torrevieja.
This ‘bunker’ guarantees not only privacy, but also high-performance sports facilities (gym, spa, top-level pitches) that are customary for professional teams. This allows Scaloni’s coaching staff total control of the preparation during the eight days of the training camp, divided into two phases before and after the match in Luanda.
Although the only confirmed commitment is next Friday’s friendly match against Angola in Luanda, the “Albiceleste” will not travel to the African country until Thursday, the day before the match. The work plan, as detailed by the AFA (Argentine Football Association), will be absolute privacy: all training sessions at the resort will be behind closed doors.
The stay will extend beyond the match in Africa. After the friendly, the delegation plans to fly back to Algorfa to continue the training camp, but without some players like Messi, who will travel back to the American continent.
The rest of the group will remain in Alicante until Tuesday, November 18, despite the fact that the second friendly, against India, has finally been cancelled.
This is not the first time that the Argentine national team chooses Alicante for a training camp; it already did so during the 1982 World Cup. Their most recent visit to the province was in October 2019, when they played a friendly at Elche’s stadium, the Martínez Valero, against Ecuador.
Like Argentina, other teams have chosen this Alicante complex as a center of operations in the last year, as is the case of the Netherlands or Germany national team and teams like RB Leipzig or Tottenham.