IF Brommapojkarna – a unique football factory from Sweden

30.1.2023

The first Swedish club in the history of the All Stars Cup is coming to Prague! IF Brommapojkarna, translated as the Bromma Youths, is unique in Europe and the world. It is the largest club in Europe, based in the Bromma district of Stockholm, with around 260 teams and 4,000 registered players. Unlike the vast majority of other clubs, its purpose is to raise young talent. However, the A team is also one of Sweden’s top teams, and this year’s 2023 season (played in a spring-autumn system) will see them as newcomers in the top Allsvenskan competition. The team is under the leadership of the international player Mellberg and plays at the small Grimsta stadium with artificial turf. It’s hard to imagine, but IFB is a huge football organization. The youth teams train at approximately fifteen locations all over Stockholm. The club rents the playing fields from the city because it can’t afford to run them itself, but in fact, the team actually requires more of them. It often happens that several teams train on one pitch at the same time and the training sessions have to be quite creative. Usually, it is not possible to practice long passes or centres, but instead dribbling or short passes. This also accounts for the typical IFB style of play across all categories, based on very good technique and ball possession. Simply put, IF Brommapojkarna is a football factory. The club is unique and successful in its own way, as it consistently produces top players. One example is the Swedish national team at the 2018 World Cup in Russia which featured four IFB players in its squad – Augustinsson, Ekdal, Nordfeldt, and Guidetti. No other Swedish club has achieved something similar!

FC Sevilla – the pride of Spain that never gives up

18.1.2023

The motto of FC Sevilla is Nunca te rindas, which means “never give up”. FC Sevilla is another of the big clubs coming to this year’s All Stars Cup. It is the oldest football club in Spain, founded in 1890, but it is only in the 21st century that the club has enjoyed its greatest success. Between 2006 and 2020, FC Sevilla won the UEFA Cup or Europa League six times, an absolute record for the competition. The club from Andalusia’s biggest city has always had a taste for top foreign players and coaches, the list of whom is almost endless. Few people today can remember the fact that the divine Maradona used to play for the club. For Czech football, it is an honour that goalkeeper Vaclík also played at the club for three seasons. The club’s youth academy is one of the most renowned in Spain and is located in the long-named Ciudad Deportiva José Ramón Cisneros Palacios complex (six natural grass pitches, four with artificial turf) on the south-eastern outskirts of the city. The academy consistently produces international-level players, just to name a few – Marchena, Sergio Ramos, Capel, Puerta, and Jesús Navas. It is also very sympathetic that the academy’s managerial and coaching positions are predominantly filled by former FCS players. This is perhaps best documented by its director Pablo Blanco, a respected club legend. FC Sevilla will be appearing at the All Stars Cup for the first time, as the fourth Spanish club in order after Valencia, Atlético Madrid and Barcelona. We have a lot to look forward to!

The first Cypriot club to play in the All Stars Cup!

13.1.2023

The twelfth edition of the All Stars Cup is bringing the first Cypriot club, AC Omonia Nicosia, to Prague. This is one of the most famous clubs in the island state, boasting the strongest fan base and the largest stadium in the country. Omonia is a twenty-one-time Cypriot champion, and in the last three seasons, it has reached the Europa League and Conference League group stages. Its squad is made up of a mix of players from all over the world, including Czech international Lecjaks. The club also features the diminutive midfielder Cassamá, who made two appearances for Sporting Lisbon at All Stars Cup and won the best midfielder award on the occasion of 2013 edition. The owner of Omonia is Stavros Papastavrou, a Cypriot businessman living in the US, whose company operates in the US mortgage market. Papastavrou is trying to modernise the club in all aspects, which also benefits the youth academy. The academy is one of the best organised and best-run in Cypriot football. The aim of the academy is to produce skilful players who will find a place in Omonia’s A team, Cypriot league clubs and even abroad, and it has been quite successful in this endeavour. Not so long ago, two young players from Omonia went to Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany!

AC Sparta Praha – fifth appearance at the All Stars Cup

12.1.2023

AC Sparta Praha will also be taking part in this year’s All Stars Cup. The most famous and historically successful Czech club is a recognized brand, often synonymous with Czech club football abroad. Although Sparta has failed to win championship titles and qualify for the Champions League in the last decade, it has a privileged position on home soil in many respects. Its youth academy at Strahov has long been based on a system that favours physically fit, strong and fast footballers. More and more often, the youths are given a chance to play in the adult A team. If these players outgrow the Czech league, they quickly go abroad. This was the case with Kadeřábek, Schick, and most recently Hložek. This will be Sparta’s fifth appearance at the All Stars Cup. The club won the first edition in 2009 and finished 11th in 2011 and 2017. In 2019, Sparta reached the final eight for the first time in the playing model with sixteen teams, finishing fifth. Curiously, during the tournament, the team twice took part in the prestigious (even in the junior category) closely-watched derby with Slavia. Striker Karabec, now a stable member of the A team, won the individual award for the best Czech player.

AFE Abidjan – academy under the supervision of the honorary consul

13.12.2022

The next confirmed participant is probably the most exotic of all the teams that have ever taken part in the All Stars Cup. AFEA, or Africa Football Elite Abidjan, is a football academy from the largest city in Côte d'Ivoire, located in the most populous district of Yopougon. The academy trains around 60 talented players aged between 12 and 18, about half of whom live at the academy, while the rest commute. They train twice a day, have an artificial turf pitch, and play matches against other academies in Côte d'Ivoire. This is done under the guidance of experienced Lebanese coach and sports director Wissam Khalil, who served as assistant to Czech coach Ivan Hašek with the Lebanese national team during his previous engagement! The goal of the academy is to enable the local boys to achieve success in life, to look after their football development, and to provide them with a decent education. The president of the academy and the guarantor of the mission is the Honorary Consul of Cote d´Ivoire in the Czech Republic, Mrs Dita Schautová. She is our partner in administrative matters and has convinced us through her enthusiasm and passion. She has even arranged for Mohamed Tijani, a native of Abidjan and currently a player for Viktoria Plzeň, to visit their academy and support “his” team at the tournament in Prague. In the past we had previously welcomed only one African team to the All Stars Cup, the Algerian club Chabab Belouizdad back in 2015.

Bohemians Praha 1905 is playing in the tournament for the twelfth time!

14.11.2022

This will be the twelfth start of Bohemians Praha 1905 at the All Stars Cup 2023! Together with Slavia, they are the only club that has participated in our tournament since its inception and have not missed a single year. The Kangaroos from Vršovice also hold a specific position thanks to their role as a collaborating club, which is reflected in practice particularly in that the club provides playing fields and other facilities where the tournament participants can train. In addition, in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the final matches of the All Stars Cup were played at the home stadium of the Green and Whites, the legendary Ďolíček. Despite their modest conditions, Bohemians have always relied on training their own players with an emphasis on combativeness and commitment, but in recent years they have clearly been preferring the technical football aspects of the game. In a playing system with sixteen participants, their best results came in 2016 and 2018, when they reached the final eight. The most known Kangaroos who have gone through the tournament and joined a professional football club are Matěj Chaluš (now at Malmö FF) and Antonín Vaníček (FK Mladá Boleslav).

SK Slavia Praha is preparing for another run in the All Stars Cup!

10.11.2022

The first confirmed domestic participant of the All Stars Cup is SK Slavia Praha! The historically most successful domestic club has played in every year of the tournament thus far. Slavia has been closely collaborating with our tournament since 2010, providing facilities in its training centres (Vladivostocká, SC Horní Počernice) or at the main stadium. The junior teams of the Red and Whites, now regularly supplemented with skilled players from abroad, have long been among the best in the Czech Republic. Moreover, they are able to assert themselves in the strongest international competition, as evidenced by their three victories at the All Stars Cup (2015, 2016 and 2019). Just for comparison – only Sporting Lisbon has the same successful record with three titles, but with only four starts in the tournament! So far, the youngsters from Slavia offered the most recent great experience in 2019, when they defeated Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 in a beautiful final match. At the time they were under the guidance of coach Karel Piták and won the match thanks to a clever long-range shot by Jakub Vorel.

Olympique Marseille – Kamara, Perrin and who else?

20.10.2022

Olympique Marseille, a famous club with a famous name, a beautiful stadium and more than a century of tradition, is another participant in the All Stars Cup. The only French club to win the Champions League so far is currently owned by American Frank McCourt, a man with many years of experience in the sports business. The club’s management team includes several Spaniards, including the head of the youth academy, which is a renowned football address in France. It has two training centres (Centre d’Entraînement Robert-Louis Dreyfus + OM Campus), where 14 elite teams in the 6 to 21 age categories prepare and play their matches. It is not easy to get into the club, as it not only cares about sports performance, but also about the education and social integration of its young players. The most famous players to come out of the club are Samir Nasri and Ghana international André Ayew. Olympique played at the All Stars Cup three times in a row in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The club had the most success the second time it played in the tournament, when it made it through to the final, in which it lost 0-1 to Hamburger SV. Of the Marseille players who arrived in Prague that year, defensive midfielder Boubakar Kamara (now at Aston Villa) and stopper Lucas Perrin (Racing Strasbourg) made their mark in professional football. Who else will follow them in the OM jersey?

Fenerbahçe SK in Prague after ten years

19.10.2022

Fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü is the first club to confirm its participation in the 2023 All Stars Cup. It is one of the oldest, richest and most successful clubs in Turkey, having won 28 titles and never having been relegated from the local Super League. The club is not only popular at home, but it also has a strong fan base abroad. Fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü has played against Czech clubs quite often in European cups; against Olomouc, Bohemians, Sparta, Plzeň, and this year the team faced Slavia and Slovácko. Czech players Michal Kadlec and Filip Novák have also played in the yellow and blue colours of the famous club. Fenerbahçe has traditionally had a strong academy, which has ten teams and prepares in two training centres in Istanbul. The club’s most famous player is Semih Sentürk, a skilful goal scorer who also scored goals for the Turkish national team. The club’s latest discovery is 17-year-old offensive midfielder Arda Güler, who is now in his second season with the adult team! This is the third time the youngsters from Fenerbahçe have come to play in our tournament, and they have been successful in their previous starts. In 2012 they reached the final, where they lost to Sporting Lisbon 0:1, while in 2013 they finished sixth. They will be making their third appearance after ten years.