The Gothia World Youth Cup is a soccer tournament hosted every year in Sweden. This year, seven young men from Utah were chosen to join the Las Vegas team representing the United States in the competition. This tournament has been deemed the world’s largest youth soccer tournament.
Alexander Pasmann, Raul Ruiz, Tony Foulger, David Brog, Traedon Chamberlain, Thomas Jensen and Luke Lillywhite of Utah joined 12 boys from Las Vegas to form the team. The boys were coached by Matt Broadhead of Salt Lake City and Jojo Vitale of Las Vegas.
More than 1,600 teams, representing 80 countries and playing 4,500 games on 110 fields, compete to decide the championship at the Cup. During the group stage, the Las Vegas team was triumphant over Lebanon, Sweden and Spain.
After the group stage came the playoffs. The Dundalk Schoolboys of Ireland, VFL Westercelle of Germany, Leiknir of Iceland and Hammarby of Sweden were also defeated by the boys of the Las Vegas team. During the semifinals, the group then worked hard to defeat SK Spring-Jeloy of Norway in a 2-1 match.
Then came the championship game. The Las Vegas team defeated E.D. Moratalaz of Spain, earning a title the US had never before won.
Pasmann and Brog have played soccer together since they were the age of seven. Both boys have had a spot on the Olympic Development team for the past two years. Brog, a student at Brighton High, scored the winning goal in the final game, giving the team the Gothia Youth World Cup in the Boys 16 Division.
The Las Vegas representatives for the team are Ahmaad Green, Ahmed Green, Alex Maesaka, Jacob Mays, Presten Manthy, Teagan Jarvis, Fernando Arevalo, Justin Irungaray, John Lynam, C. J. Neville, Jeffrey Wright and Vincent Turk.
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- Photos submitted by Susan McCurdy
