Soccer News: Cerritos Memorial Challenge Cup Draws International Competition
The 2015 Cerritos Memorial Challenge Cup will draw more than 600 teams from around the Southwest and as far away as France for three days of exciting youth soccer competition. This highly competitive youth soccer competition is heralded by coaches as one of the nation’s best soccer tournaments. So many teams applied to compete, the Cerritos Memorial Challenge Cup had to turn teams away!
Cerritos Memorial Challenge Cup 2015 presented by NIKE takes place in the city of Cerritos, located in southern Los Angeles County, on 78 fields across 30 venues. It is an amazing youth soccer tournament – professionally well run and highly competitive.
With more than 600 youth soccer teams, the Cerritos Memorial Challenge Cup is the largest Memorial Day soccer tournament on the West Coast and is considered by many as the best in California. GotSoccer.com has ranked it as one of the Top 10 tournaments in the nation. The tournament is for boys and girls U8-U17 with plus a BU19 bracket.
“Last year was our largest tournament to date, with a total of 630 teams participating,” said tournament Director Alex Camargo. “Most people have no idea how much work and detail goes into planning our event. We have 78 fields and 30 venues all going off at the same time. It’s absolutely incredible how all of our volunteers, referees, players, coaches and families come together to make this all happen. Our satisfaction is when we get out on the field and everything comes together from the first kick offs all the way through to the award ceremonies.”
Although the majority of participating teams come from Southern California, the tournament draws large numbers from Northern California as well as Arizona and Nevada.
Every year teams return to the Cerritos Memorial Challenge Cup because of the excellent competition and environment. According to Camargo, “great competition,” “excellent fields,” “well run,” “incredible up-to-date scoring,” and “outstanding awards” are just some of the compliments that are expressed every year by participants. Walter Camargo, who is also tournament Director with his brother Alex, believes in providing a great showcase for youth soccer talent. “This year, Cerritos will be better than ever with two flights of competition and more teams than ever before,” said Walter Camargo. “This year, we had to turn very good teams away and we are welcoming back teams from France, Canada, Mexico, Northern California, So Cal, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona. ”
“Cerritos is always a great tournament,” said Biggs. “It’s an amazing achievement by the management to direct such a large tournament but manage to keep control of the ‘details’ required for success! Balanced level of play, good playing surfaces, games kicking off at the right time. What I also like is the communication; the directors are always sharp getting back to you and do their very best to accommodate coaching conflicts.”
Family, friends and fans can stay up to date with the Cerritos Tournament App. The app includes tournament countdown, contacts, rules, schedules/results, college coaches in attendance, field maps and links to entertainment in the area.
