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Vengai Tinarwo confirmed they will be participating in the Gothia Cup

Collin Matiza Sports Editor
ASPIRE Soccer Academy from Norton have been officially registered to take part in this year’s Gothia World Youth Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden, next month.
The Gothia Cup is the largest international youth football tournament in the world. Every year 1 600 teams from 80 nations participate in this event.And Aspire Soccer Academy, who are based in Norton, 40km outside Harare, will be the only club from Zimbabwe that will take part in the 2014 Gothia Cup which is set to run from July 13 to 19 in Gothenburg.

According to the list of teams that have been officially registered to play in this year’s Gothia Cup, which was released by the organisers of this big global event from Gothenburg yesterday, Aspire Soccer Academy will field one team in the boys Under-18 section.

Vengai Tinarwo, the director of Aspire Soccer Academy, also confirmed yesterday that they will “definitely” be going to Sweden next month to take part in this year’s Gothia Cup.

“We have already assembled a team of 18 players that will play under Aspire Soccer Academy at the Gothia Cup. The players have been drawn from different High Schools which include Masvingo’s Pamushana, Mavhuradonha in Mashonaland Central and Conway College from Mashonaland West.

“Two schools from our base in Norton – St Eric and Vimbai – are also providing us with a number of players who will make up the Aspire Soccer Academy’s Under-18 team for this year’s Gothia Cup in Sweden.

“We are now in the process of making visa applications for the whole team as we are taking a delegation of 18 players and four officials, including coach George Jojo, who has been working with the team since the beginning of the year,” Tinarwo said.

Aspire Soccer Academy are scheduled to leave for Gothenburg on July 10 and Tinarwo said some of the parents of the players who have been picked for the Gothia Cup are paying for their children’s airfares to Sweden.

“We tried to engage the corporate world to come on board and help us to send our team to this year’s Gothia Cup where they will be getting the much-needed international exposure but we didn’t get any joy from them but I’m glad to say that some of the parents of the players who are in our team have sacrificed to pay for their children’s airfares for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play at this big international youth football tournament.

“But the most interesting thing about us going to Sweden for the Gothia Cup is that apart from giving our young players the much-needed international exposure, they will also get the chance to impress some of the international scouts who are expected to attend this tournament looking for some talented players who can be signed by some big teams in Europe.

“So, we are not going to Sweden for a holiday but for a worthy cause which might see some of our players being snatched up to sign for some top European clubs.
“In fact, our team has been preparing for this tournament since the beginning of the year under coach Jojo and we are determined to raise the Zimbabwean flag high and leave a mark there,” said Tinarwo.

In addition to Aspire Soccer Academy, 119 other teams from 32 different countries will play in the boys Under-18 section at this year’s Gothia Cup. They are divided into 29 different groups.

Four teams from South Africa – Project Playground FC (Boys Under-18), Urban Warriors (Boys Under-11), Brazilian FC (Boys Under-15) and Panorama FC (boys Under-12) – will also be joining Aspire Soccer Academy in Sweden.

Zambia will also be fielding two teams which include a Girls team, Girls 4 Change, who will play in the Girls’ Under-17 section.

Glamour Sports is the only club from Botswana that has entered for this year’s Gothia Cup and they will field a team in the Boys Under-18s.

And this means Aspire Soccer Academy from Zimbabwe will have some “good company” at this year’s Gothia Cup where they will be joined by a number of other clubs or teams from the Southern African region who will be playing in different age-groups at this tournament.

This year’s Gothia Cup will take place just after the staging of the biggest youth handball tournament in the world – the Partille Cup – in the same Swedish city of Gothenburg in July.

The 2014 Partille Cup is set to run from June 30 to July 5 and the Zimbabwe Handball Federation are sending five junior teams to this event and they will include the national boys Under-18 and girls Under-16 teams.

Mashrhino, a select side picked by the Mashonaland West Handball Association, will be fielding two teams at this year’s Partille Cup where they will also be joined by a girls Under-16 team from Harare’s Girls High School and a girls Under-18 select side, which was selected by the ZHF.