With the Table Mountain in the background, Kusasa Stars played against Rainbow Team in a friendly match

It's the first time that Kusasa Stars and Rainbow Team from South Africa will participate with girl teams. To prepare for the tournament they played a friendly match against each other.

With the famous Table Mountain in the background, two of Gothia Cup's most long-distance participants played a friendly match in Cape Town, South Africa. The girls from Rainbow Team, who will play in the G16 category, met Kusasa Stars, who will participate in G14. Both teams are very much looking forward to the big adventure.

- I have seen pictures from the Opening Ceremony with all the fans in the big arena. It looks fantastic, says 15-year-old Kyra Fester from Rainbow Team.

Peggy Zwedala, Kusasa Star's 14-year-old goalkeeper, agrees.

- It will be so exciting to meet teams from other countries in Sweden and I hope to make new friends, says Peggy and explains that she feels a little nervous before the trip.

It will be her first time traveling outside South Africa and the first time she will be on a flight. Most of the players in Kusasa Stars come from Groendal, a shantytown in Franschhoek, 70 km from Cape Town, and they grow up in very hard conditions. Kusasa means tomorrow/new dawn/opportunity in the South African language Xhosa.

- We want to give these children hope, says the Englishman George Frett, initiator of the project.

Kusasa Stars, who participated in Gothia Cup 2018 and 2019, will, just like then also participate with a boys team, which will play in B15. For the Rainbow Team, where many of the players also live in hard conditions, it will be the first trip with a girls team.

- We have participated with the boys at Gothia Cup 2015-2018. It feels really fun to now also be able to give the girls the chance, says the team leader, the Swede Pernilla Landstedt, who has lived in South Africa for over 20 years.

The friendly match was clearly won by Rainbow Team's slightly older girls, despite an impressive effort by Peggy Zwedala in Kusasa's goal.

- You were the player of the match, said her opponent Kyra Fester.