Their consistency at the youth level over the years has been second to none, and Cavalier Soccer Club rode that wave all the way to a glittering presentation at the recently concluded Gothia Cup in Sweden.

The historic participation of the Rudolph Speid-chaired club, the first from the Caribbean to be invited to the tournament, was expected to reap great rewards for both club and country, and so it did.

Not only did they finish second in the B play-offs final of the Tipselit Trophy Under-17 division of the tournament, dubbed the Youth World Cup, but the outing offered significant exposure to a number of players.

According to Paul Maxwell, technical director of the youth programme at Cavalier, one player in particular has already inked an agreement with a top club in the European country.

However Maxwell, who noted that Cavalier, and by extension Jamaica, had achieved much from their participation in the Gothia Cup, was reluctant to give further details on the player’s signing.

“All of the players did fairly well and at the end of the tournament there were some individual inquiries about a few players. One player had some signing for him to return and for them to have a look at him for a big club in Sweden; So they are now working out the paper works to make that happen,” Maxwell told the Jamaica Observer during a visit to the tabloid’s Beechwood Avenue offices on Monday.

“Apart from that, we have had invitations to other tournaments because people are interested in a lot of the other boys — so some of the boys are going to be returning (to Sweden) next year for three months for them to have a further look at them and monitor them so [that] when they reach 18 they can sign them,” he added.

Cavalier’s invitation to the Gothia Cup, regarded as the world’s largest international youth football tournament, came two years ago when they displayed their quality at two Under-15 tournaments in the Cayman Islands comprising national youth and overseas academies.

A total of 24 teams took part in the tournament, including 12 Swedish Premier League teams, with the next 12 teams coming from different parts of the world.

After a fairly shaky start to their campaign when they lost 1-2 against Swedish club IK Sirius FK, Cavalier showed significant improvement throughout the tournament and secured a 7-0 win against FK Akademija Pandev of Macedonia and followed up with a 1-1 scoreline against another Swedish club BK Hacken, who topped the group.

Those results saw them finishing third in the group where they were relegated to the B play-offs and, after growing in confidence, they secured a 2-0 win over Spanish Club Deportivo Alves in the semi-final, but later went down by a similar scoreline to Nigerian Academy TikiTaka in the ‘B’ final.

They also gave creditable performances against Athletic Club Boulogne-Billancourt.

“We expected to do well. I think the organisers, even though they knew we had the talent, they didn’t expect us to win a game because one of the main organisers told me that if we won one game then they would invite us back next year.

“But they basically played well against all the teams and basically we surpassed the expectations of others. If we had scored one more goal in the first match or the match against BK Hacken we would have made it to the ‘A’ play-offs, but the youngsters made some simple mistakes because of nerves,” Maxwell explained.

Shortly after returning from Sweden, Cavalier defied jetlag to book their spot in the KSAFA Under-17 final with a hard-fought semi-final victory over Harbour View FC. They are scheduled to meet Boys’ Town in Saturday’s final.

With that said, Maxwell expressed further joy with the vision of their youth programme coming to fruition as well as the success of their youth players, many of whom were groomed by participation in the Red Stripe Premier League.

“We concentrate at the youth level, as our philosophy is to ensure that the best coaches work with that level of players to get them to understand the game and then ensure that they get the necessary exposure. And another thing is that we don’t wait until players get to the age group to play them there, we always try to push them ahead of time so that when they match up they are basically ahead of their peers.

“So we will see how best we can build on this because this year we are looking forward for the Premier League team to be another young team, because we want to give the players exposure and then get them out — that is what the whole thing is about,” he shared.

Finally, Maxwell is optimistic that corporate Jamaica will now recognise and support their product going forward, as funding to the Gothia Cup was covered by a Swedish company Melby Gard and Puma’s international arm, with the only local support coming from the Jamaica Tourist Board.

Meanwhile, 16-year-old Kingston College player Dwayne Atkinson, who scored two goals for his team, pointed out that the Gothia Cup experience has given him added confidence going into the Manning Cup this season.

“We went into the tournament to win. A lot of people didn’t expect us to play that well, but we just went out and executed what the coach told us and I think we got the job done. So it is a great feeling to be the first Jamaican team to play a tournament like that and come second in our first year so we are looking to go all the way next year;” the left wing player reasoned.

“I didn’t get any contract but I gained some experience that will help me a lot going forward, so I just want to stay focused and remain disciplined as I look forward to the Manning Cup and the Gothia Cup next year again,” Atkinson added.