Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Evan Rupe, a rising ninth grader at Radford High School, will travel to Sweden in July to play soccer in the Gothia Cup. He will be playing with the VBR Star Elite U15 team from Roanoke.
Initially, Rupe played in the New River soccer program before joining VBR.
“They invited me to some practices, and I guess they thought I was good enough and asked if I wanted to be a part of the squad going to the Gothia Cup, and I obviously said yes,” he said earlier this week.
According to its website, the Gothia Cup is the world’s largest and most international youth football tournament. Each year, around 1700 teams from 80 nations take part playing 4500 games on 110 fields.
“It’s the teams and the participants from around the world that make the tournament unique. A meeting place for the world’s youth, irrespective of religion, skin color or nationality, with football as the common denominator. Our organization consists of eight full-time employed staff and during the tournament works more than 2 500 people,” the website said.
Rupe is both excited and nervous about the international competition.
“But in a good way. Hopefully, I can impress coaches and scouts to get noticed in Europe,” he said.
His long-term goal is to play college soccer and then later professionally in one of Europe’s top five leagues.
First held in 1975, the Gothia Cup 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, a Swedish football club.
Through the years, almost a million players from a total of 146 countries have participated in the tournament according to the tournament website.
Rupe’s games begin July 15. His team is scheduled to play teams from Sweden and England and possibly Hong Kong and Norway.