On the 10th April 2016, 12 young Soccer players (2 from Australia, 1 from Germany and 9 South Africans) flew out from OR Tambo Airport to the Logan International Airport in Boston, for an 18-day Soccer dream. Packed-into this amazing experience would be 5 Soccer matches, with two University Teams (Rhode Island / Bridgeport), two local U18 Club teams and a fully televised ‘international’ game in Simsbury, Connecticut.
The team stayed in a Beach Resort double-story home, just 80m from the Beach in the picturesque Narragansett and were hosted for meals in the homes of an amazing set of Coaches, Parents and players of the Rhode Island Rams Soccer structures from U12 – U18 teams. The team travelled to New York, where as part of the package they were able to sail around the city, visit the Empire State Building and tour the various other sights and sounds of the “City that never sleeps”.
The team had numerous training sessions with local Coaches from the Rams Soccer Club and were fully evaluated and assessed over the trip. At the completion of the tour, six of the squad were considered ‘good enough’ for possible school and University scholarships, but in the end only two of the players accepted scholarships, due in the main to academic concerns.
The squad returned to South Africa after the trip, with the express aim of sorting-out their academics, and returning as soon as possible for a second attempt at changing their lives.