{"id":23073,"date":"2026-06-11T09:21:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T09:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/11\/the-anderson-monarchs-are-going-global-in-soccer-its-just-going-to-open-their-eyes-inquirer-com\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T09:21:42","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T09:21:42","slug":"the-anderson-monarchs-are-going-global-in-soccer-its-just-going-to-open-their-eyes-inquirer-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/11\/the-anderson-monarchs-are-going-global-in-soccer-its-just-going-to-open-their-eyes-inquirer-com\/","title":{"rendered":"The Anderson Monarchs are going global in soccer: \u2018It\u2019s just going to open their eyes\u2019 – Inquirer.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Monarchs’ team of 11- and 12-year-old girls won a tournament sponsored by manufacturing firm SKF to secure and sponsorship to compete in the Gothia Cup in Sweden.
While some of the world\u2019s best soccer players will be coming to Philadelphia for the World Cup<\/a> this summer, some of Philadelphia\u2019s young soccer standouts will be leaving the country for an international tournament of their own.
The Anderson Monarchs\u2019 team of 10- and 11-year-old girls punched its ticket to the Gothia Cup, which is July 12-18 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Gothia Cup is the largest youth soccer tournament in the world<\/a>.
The Monarchs pulled off a 2-1 shootout win \u2014 their first-ever shootout \u2014 over North Philly United in a Montgomery County-based \u201cMeet the World\u201d tournament sponsored by manufacturing firm SKF on April 18. This secured the Monarchs\u2019 position as one of the 16 teams SKF would be sponsoring for the Gothia Cup.
The Anderson Monarchs were created to provide experiences for children \u201cthat normally wouldn\u2019t get those opportunities,\u201d coach Steve Bandura said. He added that these opportunities allow the players to grow socially and academically, and he expects an opportunity like this to have a lasting effect on the athletes.
\u201cThis is going to be an amazing experience for our girls to get out of South Philly,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to open their eyes and change their perspective on the world, really. And we\u2019re meeting girls from all over on common ground, on the soccer pitch, and I think it\u2019s going to be an incredible experience for them.\u201d
\u00bb READ MORE: Mo\u2019ne Davis joins the Savannah Bananas tour on a new team coached by a former Phillies star<\/a><\/b>
With the sponsorship from SKF, the Monarchs\u2019 entire trip is taken care of. SKF has headquarters in Gothenburg and has been the main sponsor of the Gothia Cup since 2007. Over the years, SKF has brought over 5,000 players to the Gothia Cup, and the qualifying Meet the World tournaments remain their largest corporate social responsibility project, said SKF communications manager Jackie Rahmer.
\u201cIt\u2019s more than just a sponsorship for us. It\u2019s an opportunity to celebrate soccer and have kids come together and build friendships across borders,\u201d Rahmer said. \u201cWe just think that\u2019s something that\u2019s very special.\u201d
One of the Sweden-bound players, Rosanna Olsen, said she and her teammates are taking advantage of their opportunity by preparing as best as they can. Olsen, Mya Davis-Taylor, and some of their other teammates are using YouTube to learn basic Swedish phrases for the occasion.
And while phrases like \u201chello\u201d and \u201cgoodbye\u201d are harder to learn than Davis-Taylor, who\u2019s a midfielder and goalkeeper, expected, all 30,000 athletes participating in the tournament share one common language, no matter whether they call it soccer or football.
Olsen, a forward, believes that interacting with some members of these 1,900 teams from 75 countries can help with her own knowledge of the game.
\u201cI think I\u2019ll learn new ways of playing, and how their mindset is when they\u2019re playing, and their techniques on shooting the ball and passing the ball and other things like that,\u201d Olsen said.
For players like Olsen, Davis-Taylor, and Aasiyah Ellison, who\u2019s also a goalkeeper and midfielder, this will be their first time leaving the country. And while Davis-Taylor said she\u2019s eager to be on a plane and see the view from the airport, meeting new people and playing soccer is most exciting.
\u201cWe get to stay in the same rooms [as our teammates], we get to meet new people, and then instead of just staying with our teammates, we can make new friends with the other people that are there, too,\u201d Davis-Taylor said.
\u00bb READ MORE: Scott Bandura returns to Rickwood Field \u2018grateful to be included\u2019 in MLB\u2019s Negro Leagues celebration<\/a><\/b>
But, she\u2019ll also get to connect on a deeper level with her own teammates.
Bandura said there\u2019s a natural sense of camaraderie that comes from playing three sports together year-round, but this tournament will create \u201cbonds that are going to be pretty tough to break.\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re in a strange environment, but you\u2019re there together,\u201d Bandura said. \u201cI might be 100 years old when we get back from a whole week with the 13 11-year-old girls, but it\u2019s so worth it. There\u2019s so many benefits to this for them, and I think it\u2019s going to draw them even tighter together as a family long-term, like lifelong.\u201d
Cali Nichols, the Monarchs\u2019 striker, is looking forward to seeing how her team will connect on the pitch in Sweden and has been preparing for the adrenaline rush of the tournament. But she\u2019s also looking forward to the downtime and exploring a new place.
Femi Awodesu, a former member of the Monarchs\u2019 program, now plays for Helsingborgs IF in Sweden, so Bandura hopes a visit with him is on the agenda.
And for Nichols, seeing all the history of the country is on her personal agenda.
\u201cJust driving around and seeing all of the monuments that Sweden has, and all of its history, as well as the food,\u201d Nichols said.
Bandura compared the Monarchs\u2019 opportunity to a rabbit in its hole that looks beyond to see the rest of the world. He hopes that similarly, this opportunity will expand his team\u2019s perception.
\u201cI want to explore and see what the whole world looks like,\u201d Ellison said.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Monarchs’ team of 11- and 12-year-old girls won a tournament sponsored by manufacturing firm SKF to secure and sponsorship to compete in the Gothia Cup in Sweden.While some of the world\u2019s best soccer players will be coming to Philadelphia for the World Cup this summer, some of Philadelphia\u2019s young soccer standouts will be leaving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}