The Gothia Cup is touted as the ’World Youth Cup’. It was started in 1975 and has had 126 different nations represented throughout the years. This year there are 1602 participating teams from 62 nations. There are 212 teams in our boys’ age group we call U14, for under 14 years old by 1st August in the US, which they call Class Boys 15. There are 62 boys and girls teams representing the United States, second largested representation only to Germany, however there are only five boy’s teams in our age class from the US.
The name Gothia Cup was invented by Mr. Bengt Bjerned from the club Gais. Gothia is the old latin word for the area where Gothenburg, Sweden is situated. In the Gothia Cup at least 80% of all boys games are played by teams from different countries. The girl’s soccer has more countries and should be of better quality than any other tournament. By having close to 70 countries every year that participate in the Gothia Cup, it remains the world’s most international tournament.
Much like the Olympics, the Gothia Cup has an opening ceremony of more than 500 dancers, chorus and solo artists in front of 50,000 spectators in the Ullevi Stadium and at a cost of $300,000 to produce. The Club Gothia Disco at Svenska Massan is one of the largest discos in the world with almost 5000 guests every night. This year they have also added Club Gothia Foam, a unique disco based on music and foam (yep, bubbles & more bubbles...not designed for those who don’t want to get wet) and take 1500 guests per evening.
The LISC players will be staying at a school with the classroom becoming a dorm setting, the locker room their bathroom and the cafeteria their meals away from home. There are 15 teams staying at the school in Gothenburg representing Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greece and Spain. After a day of playing on the pitch (soccer field) they come back for dinner and barttering in the hallways. Each of the players have pins, stamps, cards, etc that will get exchanged with players from other countries. Of course with only four hours of ‘night’, the key is getting it all shut down and in bed for the next day’s game.
More information can be learned at the official website http://www.gothiacup.se/ , but to
get a real feel for what's in store, view the promotional video at http://www.gothiacuptv.com/.
TEK
