TUCSON — The last few years have not been kind to the Old Pueblo, as this city is known. The collapse of the housing market sapped its growth. Boycotts over the state’s immigration policies kept tourists away. The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords shook its residents.

Then there was the departure of Major League Baseball. Last year, for the first time since Harry S. Truman was president, no professional baseball teams held spring training here. Without the White Sox, Rockies or Diamondbacks, Tucson no longer felt like a big-league town; tens of millions of dollars vanished with them.

The teams had left for Phoenix and surrounding cities that dangled taxpayer-subsidized stadiums and the prospect of shorter commutes because all 15 clubs that train in Arizona are now nearby. Tucson was also hurt by the loss of a college bowl game, a golf tournament and a Triple-A baseball team, before replacements were found.

But the city is bracing for an economic lift — and a small measure of revenge — when six Major League Soccer teams arrive in the coming weeks to train here for the first time. Four of them — the Los Angeles Galaxy, the New England Revolution, the New York Red Bulls and Real Salt Lake — will also compete in the Desert Diamond Cup, a two-week tournament that could draw as many as 50,000 fans and fill some of the void.