The Algeria national team was greeted by a more than 300-person crowd of supporters overnight as the team pulled into its Lawrence, KS hotel.

A spokesperson for the Lawrence Police Department said the crowd waited in the rain until after midnight when the team arrived.

Algeria touched down at Kansas City International Airport after 10 p.m. Sunday and was escorted to Lawrence by LPD and other assisting agencies.

"Doing an escort that large and that far takes a lot of moving parts, and so it went really well," said Lawrence Police Chief Rich Lockhart. "We were really happy to get everybody here safely and had about 300 fans here welcoming the team."

For the next month or more, wherever team Algeria goes, the Lawrence Police will go with them.

"We'll be responsible for getting them from the hotels to the practice facility and then also from the hotel or practice facility up to Arrowhead for games," Lockhart said. "For the local movements, it'll be mostly our department doing it. For the movements up to the stadium we'll have support from our Topeka partners, Kansas Highway Patrol and Olathe, as well."

Algeria is staying at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel off McDonald Drive and 2nd Street. Algeria has a private entrance to the hotel that has a fence with a privacy screen around the parking lot. Surrounding the fence are multiple cement road blocks.

Lockhart said it's taken two years of planning to prepare for the police escorts and additional security, while still serving the people of Lawrence.

"We're using our detectives in more traditional patrol roles," Lockhart said. "And then we've also canceled vacations for officers during this six-week time frame, so we've got all of our people on duty, available for whatever may happen."

It's not just the DoubleTree or Rock Chalk Park that have Algerian flags and banners waving, the city of Lawrence has been decorated, as well.

Mass Street in Lawrence has flags welcoming Algeria, trees are lit up with red, white and green for the team and local stores want to welcome the team and their fans.

"I just think that it just shows when those people come in, they see that you've taken a little bit of thought about how far they have to travel and what they're going through," said Curtis McCoy, the showroom manager at Waxman Candles.

The small business has been making candles in Lawrence for more than 50 years. The team got creative this year to craft something special for Algeria and their fans.

Waxman Candles created a fennec fox candle. The small, but big-eared fox is native to the Sahara Desert and the mascot for the Algeria national team.

"We took our regular fox candle and kind of designed it up, made some modifications," McCoy said. "And it's been a real hit. The city has loved it. They ended up buying 70 candles to give to the hospitality staff from team Algeria."

Waxman is far from the only business catering toward the team and their fans. The Yarn Barn just down Mass Street has yarn kits with instructions on how to make your own hat or scarf. The kits come in different colors for each of Kansas City's base camp teams.

Over at Johnny's Tavern, there's a sign outside showing how far Algeria, Argentina, Netherlands and England are from Lawrence.

McCoy said he thinks all of Lawrence will be pulling for Algeria in the World Cup. He's hoping their fans will stop by the town if they come to watch Algeria practice.

"We hope that they all come down and would love to meet them, share stories," he said.

As Lawrence Police prepare for Algerian fans, or any others from outside the country, officers have a new tool to break through any language barriers.

"Our body cameras have a language translation feature that the companies unlocked for us for this World Cup," Lockhart said. "So, you can push a button on the camera and tell it what language you want to use. If we're going from English to French, we just say, 'English-French,' we push the button, I talk, it spits it out in French."

Algeria is expected to have an open practice at Rock Chalk Park. Lockhart said they're preparing for a capacity crowd. As soon as public details about the open training session are released, KMBC will pass them along.

Algeria will face the defending World Cup champions Argentina in the first-ever World Cup match at Arrowhead Stadium on June 16.