A family of Argentina natives in Johnson County is celebrating their home country’s national soccer team setting up its base camp in Kansas City for this summer’s World Cup.
Last week, Argentina’s national football team, the reigning World Cup champions, announced it will have its base camp at Compass Minerals National Performance Center, Sporting KC’s facilities in Kansas City, Kansas.
The announcement drew praise and excitement from Claudia Luna West and her two adult sons, all originally from Argentina, who have settled in Johnson County and now own businesses here.
Growing up watching soccer in their home country, they said this is a “dream come true.”
“I was super happy, super excited, because I was preparing for this for a long time, wishing that it would actually happen, and it did,” Luna West, owner of Buenos Aires Restaurant in downtown Shawnee.
Base camps will be used by World Cup teams to prepare for matches. It’s where they will practice, conduct player workouts and hold team meetings. Base camps provide hubs where teams will arrive before their first match and can return to in between matches.
For squads like Argentina’s, which have aspirations to advance far in the tournament, it means they could be stationed at their base camp for weeks this summer. (England also announced this week it will have its base camp in Kansas City, too. They are expected to stay at a Prairie Village hotel during the tournament.)
Argentina will play its first match against Algeria in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium on June 16. The rest of their group stage matches will be played in Texas.
If Argentina advances and wins its group, then the team could play a quarterfinal match in Kansas City on July 11.
Argentina’s team has won multiple World Cups
The excitement for Argentina’s World Cup teams runs deep and with good reason.
The team is a three-time World Cup champion, winning in 1978, 1986 and the latest competition in 2022. Its roster is headlined by superstar Lionel Messi and coached by Lionel Scaloni, who was named the Best FIFA Football Coach in 2022.
West’s son Ivan Acuña grew up going to soccer matches in Argentina. He said expectations are running high for the team this year.
“I’m pretty positive they will get the Cup. That’s what I’m hoping for, especially in the U.S., my new home,” he said.
While the team is in the area, the family hopes it can host them and their families, if they’re looking to get a taste of home.
“That’s my dream, to have the team step in here and have dinner at the restaurant. That would be so good,” West said.
Soccer is part of Argentina’s roots
Before moving to the United States in 2019, Luna West’s family grew up in Tucumán, Argentina, where they cheered on Atlético Tucumán, the city’s soccer team.
In Argentina, the sport goes beyond being a competition and is more of a way of life, Acuña said.
“If there is a limit (to cheering on a team), they surpass it. We’re very emotional, so those things play a big role. When our team plays like a national team or club team, it’s just crazy,” he said.
After immigrating to America, Acuña and West said, they weren’t sure if they were ever going to get to see Argentina play in the U.S. Now that that is becoming a reality, they can’t wait to show Americans how they celebrate soccer.
“It’s like bringing American football and American football fans to where I’m from in Argentina, and be like, ‘Oh, this is what it’s all about’ and they’re going to see that and we’re going to be excited to have them experience that,” Acuña said.
They want to share their culture
While the World Cup’s competition is fierce, Luna West hopes the feelings off the field are ones of openness and curiosity.
At her restaurant, Luna West shares her culture through her cooking, from empañadas stuffed with ingredients ranging from grass-fed beef to spinach or spicy potatoes.
“It makes me happy to serve people. I have been like that all my life. It comes from my Italian part (of my heritage) that we serve food as a way of showing love,” she said.
As the World Cup nears, she hopes more people will not only be curious about Argentina’s cuisine but also her home country’s way of life.
To help with that, she’s launching her own magazine, “Argentina Meets Kansas,” which will feature stories about both Argentina and America’s cultures, written in both English and Spanish.
She hopes to make physical copies available throughout the Johnson County area in the lead-up to the World Cup this summer.
“It tells a story of soccer. It tells the story of the players, the story of how Argentinians like soccer. It teaches things,” she said.
They hope the World Cup brings people together
As Argentinians and Americans take in each other’s cultures, Acuña said he hopes they see more similarities than differences.
“American values are very strong: Family and nation and working hard and working together for the same goal. We also share those values,” he said.
West said her family is living proof.
While she runs the restaurant in downtown Shawnee, Acuña operates Argentino Heritage LLC, a moving and hauling company in Lenexa. Her other son and Ivan’s brother, Simon Acuña, runs Patagonia Tree Service LLC, a tree-trimming service in Johnson County.
They know the values of both hard work and celebration, and when Argentina’s national soccer team comes to town, they hope to show off both.
“It’s humbling, and also, there’s a sense of pride for having the U.S. experience our culture, which is so rich in food, in family and sports. So just being able to transmit that to people we know here as friends that never experienced football like we did in Argentina, that’s just so special,” Acuña said.
This story was originally published in the Johnson County Post.
