Three Wood River Valley residents are part of the Jersey United International Soccer Club en route to the world's largest and most international youth soccer tournament—the 2005 Gothia Cup in Sweden.
Wood River High School girls' varsity soccer coach Greg Gvozdas and two of his players, senior Margii Driscoll and junior Kaitlin Gasenica, are members of Jersey United's traveling squad of 20 players, four coaches and one trainer.
Two of the Jersey United players are from Idaho—Driscoll and Gasenica--one is from California and the rest from New Jersey. Wood River coach Gvozdas expects his players to fit in and compete very well with the rest of the Jersey United U-19 girls.
Jersey United will play in two international tournaments including the Gothia Cup in Sweden during their 21-day European trip that started Tuesday, July 5 from Newark Liberty International Airport.
Headed up by Ridgewood (N.J.) girls' soccer coach Jeff Yearing, Jersey United arrived in Holland today where they'll train and tour through Saturday, July 9. Then it's on to Denmark for the Tivoli/Wiibroe Cup that finishes up Saturday, July 16.
The highlight of the trip will be the 31st annual Gothia Cup July 18-23. Last year the Gothia Cup attracted to 1,525 teams from 61 nations to Gothenburg for a total of 4,000 games over a week. Two years ago there were 43,800 spectators at the opening ceremony.
Jersey United is entered in the 34-team top-flight U-19 girls' category at the Gothia Cup. The U-19 category contains 26 teams from Sweden, two from the U.S., three from Norway, one from Scotland, one from Nigeria and one from Spain.
The teams will play group qualifying games July 18-20—Jersey United playing Kallered SK from Sweden July 18, going against IFK Osby from Sweden July 19 and Tyreso FF from Sweden July 20. Quarterfinals and semi-finals follow. The finals are July 23. Jersey United returns to New York's JFK Airport on Monday, July 25.
Head coach Yearing has taken Jersey United select independent girls' soccer teams to Europe 10 times since 1993. The teams train, compete and sightsee in some of the world's best soccer environments.
This is Jersey United's first visit to the Gothia Cup since 1996, when then-Wood River High School soccer star Laura Cordes was a member of Jersey United. Cordes is now married to Wood River coach Greg Gvozdas.
Last summer Gvozdas and his Ketchum-based Sawtooth United Premier Select Team that included Driscoll and Gasenica traveled to Europe and trained with Yearing and the 2004 Jersey United team at Aalden, Holland. This is Gvozdas' first year as a Jersey United assistant.
In his first year as Wood River's varsity girls' soccer coach in 2004, Gvozdas led the Wolverines to a 17-1-1 record (70 goals scored, 4 against) and consolation champions of the State 4A soccer tournament.
Driscoll (22 goals, 5 assists in 19 games) was "Player of the Year" in the Great Basin Conference and Gvozdas shared the "Coach of the Year," honors in the league. Gasenica was the team's top playmaker and a first-team Great Basin pick.
For updated information visit the tournament site at gothiacup.com.
