Wales and England could be neighbours in northern France next summer if Chris Coleman’s side complete their qualification for Euro 2016 as the Welsh have scouted a base within a couple of miles of the English camp at Chantilly.
Wales need a point from their remaining two qualifiers, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and at home to Andorra, next month to guarantee their first appearance at a major finals since 1958 and Coleman is confident that will be achieved next month. The 24-team lineup for the tournament will not be known until after the play-offs in November, but Uefa had long since allocated 66 sites in France from which national associations could pinpoint their preferred hotels and training camps.
A delegation from the Welsh FA visited Montataire – a town of 12,500 people close to Senlis and Chantilly and only 30 miles north of Paris – on 3 August to inspect the Stade Marcel Croene, a venue which hosted the Japan and Morocco teams for the 2002 Confederations Cup. It is home to an amateur and youth development team, Standard FC de Montataire, though Ligue 1 sides have trained at the stadium during international breaks. T
he stadium complex, which has a capacity of around 1,800, incorporates a boxing gym and swimming pool, with the team likely to stay in the nearby four-star hotel, Les Fontaines, in Gouvieux just outside Chantilly. The 300-room hotel specialises in conferences, workshops and motivational events but also boasts a football pitch which, Uefa has suggested, could be converted into a training base.
That venue is less than two miles from the England team hotel, Auberge du Jeu de Paume, with Roy Hodgson’s team to train at the local amateur club, US Chantilly, which will be renovated before the tournament.
“It’s a base we’ve spent a long time preparing for,” said the England manager. “We looked at other places in France before we made up our mind. We had a very clear set of criteria that we wanted to fulfil in this base camp: proximity to the training ground, the type of town where the camp would be, proximity to the airport and quite a few other criteria. When we looked around we eventually came to the conclusion that Chantilly was the one which best filled the criteria.”
Wales, on the assumption qualification is achieved, intend to make a final decision on their base after the draw for the group stage on 12 December, but Montataire and Les Fontaines are confident they will be chosen to host Coleman’s players. “They are looking at things until January when we expect them to confirm they will be using our facilities,” said Dimitri Salomon, a spokesman for the Standard club.
