Mexico will host just six of the 48 national teams during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with the overwhelming majority opting to set up their base camps in the United States — a lopsided distribution that leaves half of Mexico’s prepared training sites unused.

According to announcements this week, only Mexico, South Africa, Uruguay, South Korea, Tunisia and Colombia selected base camps in Mexico.

By contrast, 40 teams chose U.S. locations, while just two — Canada and Panama — will be based in Canada.

Co-hosted for the first time ever by three countries, the 39-day men’s soccer extravaganza will begin June 11 with two games: Mexico vs. South Africa at 1 p.m. local time at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, and South Korea vs. Czechia at 8 p.m. at Estadio Akron in Zapopan, a city of about 1.3 million adjacent to Guadalajara.

The Mexico City match will be preceded by a “star-powered” opening ceremony at 11:30 a.m.

As for team practices, South Korea and Colombia will set up camp at the training academies of metro Guadalajara’s two Liga MX teams, CD Guadalajara (aka Chivas) and Atlas FC, respectively.

El-Tri, the Mexican national team, will train at the Mexican Football Federation’s High-Performance Center in southern Mexico City.

South Africa will train in Pachuca, Hidalgo, and Tunisia in the Monterrey metro area — both at Liga MX team facilities — while Uruguay will be just outside of Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, at a field and training complex next to the Mayakoba Fairmont resort.

Meanwhile, six of Mexico’s 12 proposed base camp sites will sit empty: facilities in Querétaro, Puebla, Tijuana, Toluca and Torreón, as well as a specially built training complex at the Moon Palace all-inclusive near Cancún.

Teams that have at least one scheduled game in Mexico but opted to stay in the U.S. are Uzbekistan, Czechia, DR Congo, Spain, Sweden and Japan.

National team officials cited logistics, infrastructure and travel considerations as key factors in choosing their locations.

South Africa’s decision to base in Pachuca stood out, driven in part by security considerations.

“The perception regarding crime and other very important reasons are what led us to choose Hidalgo,” said South Africa’s ambassador to Mexico, Beryl Rose Sisulu. “The people who made the decision visited Cancún, they visited Puebla [and] Hidalgo as well, and besides the altitude and other things that Hidalgo has, I realize that here the air is as clean as the state is safe.”

Sisulu also pushed back on perceptions of insecurity in Mexico, saying, “there’s crime in Mexico and all over the world.”

With reports from Diario AS, Fox 5 DC and Criterio Hidalgo