Photo: Dante Mandriotti, Jette Andersen, Alison Leigh Forman and two young soccer players from Cantolao.

Peru welcomes the Dana Cup

220 young South American soccer players are dribbling the ball around in 28 to 30 degrees heat on 4 of the fields in Peru's capital Lima. They are participating in one of South Americas most prestigious youth tournaments, the Copa Amistad.

The players come from all around South America and this means you can experience some very elegant soccer. That is exactly what Dana Cup's International Secretary Alison Forman and the Daily Leader Jette Anderden are experiencing in these days.

The Dana Cup representatives have been given a very warm welcome by the South Americans and most of all from the Copa Amistad organization. The president Dante Mandriotti "Kiko" has been introducing the Dana Cup reps to the many club leaders.

No matter where the Danes show up, there is a huge amount of interest for the Dana Cup and there are many clubs who wish to make Dana Cup a goal for their young soccer players, even though they will have to prepare themselves to play in slightly cooler conditions on the fields in Hjørring.

- We have made some great contacts this way. I cannot say for sure that we will get more teams from South America to the Dana Cup but on the other hand I am sure that we will see positive results from our visit this year and in the years to come, says Alison Forman.

- We are very happy to have the South American teams in our tournament as they offer Dana Cup an exiciting style of soccer that everybody loves to watch and play against, says Jette Andersen.

- We feel that we have not seen a satifactory development in teams from South America the last few years and therefore we decided to take this trip this year. Like Alison, I believe we will see positive results from our efforts.