After cycling more than 10,000 miles from Gualeguaychú, Argentina, near the Uruguayan border, three Argentine soccer fans finally arrived in Kansas City.
Vicente Conculini, Yamandu Martínez, and Miguel Silio have been journeying since August 16, 2025, on their way to the World Cup. The Argentine national team chose the home of MLS’s Sporting Kansas City as its base camp training facility and will play one group stage match at the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium, making Kansas City the de facto home of the reigning tournament champions in 2026.
Along the way, the men enjoyed Colombian landscapes, Costa Rican beaches, and Dallas barbecue. Their Instagram account now has 30,000 followers.
But they didn’t score tickets to the World Cup.
“Now the tickets are so high, the price is so expensive, we need to wait a little, maybe the sellers put the price more low,” Conculini tells Front Office Sports.
Conculini says the trio tried to buy tickets five times in FIFA’s lottery, but was unsuccessful.
“We have bad luck,” Conculini said with a laugh. “Sometimes we stay in the bicycle cycling when the tickets are open to buy and we don’t have good connection.”
Conculini says the group would pay the prices FIFA originally set for tickets to the matches, but doesn’t want to pay the inflated costs. FIFA has used a dynamic pricing model that has raised prices for match tickets.
In the fall, FIFA listed packages for Argentina with single-game tickets costing $325 for Category 3, $705 for Category 2, and $930 for Category 1, according to The Athletic.
As of June 4, only Argentina’s first of three group stage matches against Algeria in Kansas City was listed on FIFA’s primary ticket platform. The get-in price was $1,650.
On FIFA’s official resale site—from which the global governing body takes a 15% cut from both buyer and seller—the get-in price for Argentina–Algeria was $603.75 on Thursday.
On secondary resale sites, the get-in price for Argentina’s match against Algeria was more than $800. The average get-in price across resale sites for Argentina’s group stage matches is about $950, according to the ticket tracking company TicketData.
“It’s like a business for the [reseller], both this ticket and FIFA,” Conculini says. “But for us, of course, it’s not good business.
Conculini says the group is being put up in a hotel for a few nights, but doesn’t have housing guaranteed through the first Argentina match on June 16. He says that’s not too concerning after their months of staying in hostels, hotels, homes of friends and family, their tents, churches, and soccer clubs. Conculini also says they’re looking forward to trying Kansas City barbecue while in town.
The idea for the bike trip came from Silio, who biked from Madrid to Russia for the tournament in 2018, then Madrid to Qatar in 2022. The trio doesn’t have a flight booked home yet, but would like to follow Argentina to the next two matches in Dallas, and then Miami for the Round of 32, given Lionel Messi and company win their group.
“I think we finish there,” Conculini says. “It’s so expensive, the tickets, the hotel, everything, I’m going to come back home, and we need to save money for this year.”
“I quit my job, and after 10 months and one month for the World Cup, it’s difficult to have money for everything.”
