PH boys win first 4 matches in Gothia Cup
The Philippines’ Makati FC racked up four straight wins in the group stages which ended on Wednesday, July 17, to advance to the next round of the 80-nation Gothia Cup, acclaimed as the World Cup of youth football, in Sweden.
Fresh from a runner-up finish in the 2019 Paris World Games last week, the Philippines’ Makati FC, reinforced by four players from Davao club Crocs FC, amassed a perfect 12 points on four wins with a goal aggregate of 19 and surrendering only 4 to top Group 3 of the Boys 13 division which has 38 groups.
Academie de foot Djerba finished second in the group with a 3-1 mark.
Mentored by Davao’s Christian Ea, former member of the Philippine national team and head coach of Davao Crocs FC, the Filipino booters aged 13 years old and below, scored wins against Sweden’s Skarhamns 2-1, Germany’s Altona 6-1, Sweden’s Djurgardens IF 4-1, Sweden’s BC Hacken 2 5-0, and Academie De Foot Djerba 4-2.
The team earlier finished second in the elite 2019 Paris World Games 11-a-side football tournament on Friday, July 12, in Paris, France bowing to host Paris France Academy 2-1 in a tightly-contested finale in the multi-nation event.
Crocs FC’s Julio Yoldi again starred for Philippines-Makati FC in the Gothia Cup group stages. Aside from the Silliman University standout Yoldi, the other Davao Crocs FC standouts in the squad are Cian Nogadas, Mattheus Lim, and Sean Robles.
Gothia Cup is the world’s largest and most international youth football tournament. Each year, around 1700 teams from 80 nations take part and they play 4500 games on 110 fields.
Gothia Cup was first held in 1975. The tournament was started by the football associations BK Häcken, GAIS and a local newspaper but has been owned since the early 80’s entirely and solely by BK Häcken. Through the years, almost a million players from a total of 146 countries have participated in the tournament.
