The CEE Cup Organising Committee, the organizers of the annual youth football tournament known as the “CEE Cup” has announced today the complete list of confirmed teams taking part in the tournament this year. The CEE Cup kicks off on Wednesday, 24th July, and, as usual, it will run for a week, with the ‘Grand Final’ taking place on Wednesday, 31st July.
The CEE Cup is an international football tournament for top youth teams (under 19) from Central & Eastern Europe (CEE). This year, however, the organisers have invited two ‘guest’ teams from outside Europe; the Cruz Azul Fotbal Club from Mexico, one of the most famous clubs in Mexican history that is based in Mexico City, and Maccabi Haifa, one of the oldest and most successful teams in Israel.
Talking about the guest teams, Roberto De Blasio, Chairman of the CEE Cup Organising Committee commented:
„Each year we want to get the absolute top youth teams to take part in the CEE Cup, and with the level of many of the CEE teams so high, we thought it would be fantastic to invite a couple of leading clubs from outside Europe to take part in order to give the youths from the CEE region a chance to compete against players that play with a very different football mentality.”
Cruz Azul Fotbal Club (“Cruz Azul”) is touring Europe during the summer and will be playing in Holland and Germany after they have taken part in the CEE Cup. Its senior team has been the Mexican Primera Division champion on 8 different occasions, and its youth team is also extremely successful.
The youth team includes Francisco Javier Flores, a midfielder that has already been called to the first team, and Inaki Dominguez, who has also been called to the first team and who played in the Copa Libertadores in 2012.
Maccabi Haifa is based in Haifa in Israel and is also exceptionally successful. Its team includes Yaniv Brik, known as the ‘boss in midfield’ who was born and raised in the Maccabi Haifa FC’s youth department, and he sees the chance to travel in Europe as ‘a dream coming true’. Maccabi Haifa also includes in its team the star goalkeeper Bumshtein ‘Nacho’ Tal (‘Nacho’) who is in his second year playing in the youth team.
De Blasio acknowledges that these two teams are expected to be of an exceptional standard, but says:
“We do not think that the local teams should be intimidated by these top teams, as we know from the last two years that, especially in the Czech Republic, we have players that are of a level of any other youth team in the world.”
The complete list of teams taking part in the CEE Cup 2013 is:
Bohemians 1905 (Czech Republic)
Cruz Azul (Mexico)
Ferencvaros (Hungary)
FK Sarajevo (Croatia)
Gyor (Hungary)
Maccabi Haifa (Israel)
Slavia Praha (Czech Republic)
Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia)
Sparta Praha (Czech Republic)
Sturm Graz (Austria)
Universitatea Cluj (Romania)
Vasas Budapest (Hungary)
Since its inception in 2011, the CEE Cup has received the full support of the Czech Football
Association (FAČR). The tournament focuses on “Respect”, “Fair Play” and “Competitiveness”, all of which are very important for today’s youth players.
In addition to supporting young footballers, the CEE Cup also supports charity and every year it donates 20% of the income received from sponsors and 50% from each ticket sold to UNICEF in order to support the UNICEF Schools for Africa project.
For more information please visit http://www.ceecup.eu/
