AYSO Region 69 Alums Play for Santa Monica Surf at Gothia Cup in Sweden

The Gothia Cup, the largest and most International youth soccer tournament in the world, took place July 17-23 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Every year, approximately  1,700 teams from 80 countries participate  and one of them this summer was Santa Monica Surf SC’s 14U Boys squad, led by Palisadian Moses Wilson and fellow AYSO Region 69 alumni Ronen Hayempour, Arshayan Desai and Julien Reger.

Wilson, Hayempour and Desai currently play Flight 1 for Coach Joseph Okafor on Santa Monica Surf’s Boys 2008 White team. Both Desai and Hayempour scored goals on the way to Surf’s Sweet 16 run. After losses to teams from Sweden and Norway, Surf rebounded past TSV Weyhe-Lahausen of Germany, 4-1. In the knockout phase Surf beat a team from Sweden 1-0 then fell to another Swedish side, 2-0.

Last winter, Wilson led Wildwood School to the Pacific Basin League quarterfinals. There the Wolves lost a thriller to St. Matthew’s, 2-1.

Mychal Wilson, Moses’ dad, organized and sponsored Gothia Cup teams in 2017, 2018, and 2019 and will be organizing teams for the 2023 Gothia Cup competition in Cancun and Goteborg.

Santa Monica Surf’s B2004-05 Blue and B2006 squads are coached by ex-Palisades High basketball and soccer star Federico Bianchi, who later was a captain and midfielder at Boston University and would go on to coach the Pali Blues women’s semipro club that played its home games at Stadium by the Sea. Bianchi was picked a Reebok All-American his senior season at Palisades and played for California South’s Olympic Development State Team.   

Molly Held, the granddaughter of longtime Region 69 Commissioner Debbie Held, played on the LA United Girls U14 team that went 2-1 in group play (beating teams from Iceland and Canada by 6-0 scores) at the Gothia Cup. In the round of 16, LA United was edged by another American team, NCE Soccer, 1-0.

Another former AYSO Region 69 player and Palisadian Yuri Loureiro also played Gothia Cup for his Brazilian U15 team RS Sports, which finished 1-4 after playing five teams from Sweden, losing in the round of 32 in its division.