East Meadow resident Aiden Mustafich and his Long Island soccer team heads to Sweden for the Gothia Cup

East Meadow resident Aiden Mustafich and his soccer team, Hota Bavarian Soccer Club 2006, left on a trip of a lifetime on July 13. It took them a flight and a bus to get there, but ultimately they made it to Sweden to represent the United States during the Gothia Cup tournament.

The Gothia Cup, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, is one of the world’s largest and most international youth soccer tournaments. Annually, roughly 1,700 teams from 80 nations come together to compete. The first tournament was held in 1975, and it is open to any club to register.

“When I heard we were going to Europe to play I was really excited,” Mustafich, 16, who is a right winger, said. “It’s a great opportunity for people on our team and I know a lot of people can’t say that they had the chance to play against kids from other countries.”

Seventeen kids from the team, the youngest being 15 and the oldest being 17, along with a few parents and their coach, Scott Knight, took the trip to Sweden.

The idea to head overseas for this tournament came from Frank Franzi, the father of Peter, 17, and Frank Jr., 15, from Franklin Square. When he was young, Franzi played on a Hota team and got to travel to the Gothia Cup, and he knew it was an opportunity that he wanted to give to his sons’s team.

“I went when I was 17 years old and it was the time of my life,” Franzi said. “So I promised the kids we would go and it would be a phenomenal experience playing internationally, which is different from the U.S.”

The ‘Hota’ in the club’s name stands for the Hotel Workers of America. The NY Hota Bavarian Soccer Club was the first, founded in 1922, and there are 20 additional Hota clubs around the world, primarily in Europe and South America. The NY club is located in Franklin Square.

What’s special about the club is that it focuses on skill rather than the ability to afford a travel team. According to its website, the club represents, “a joint sportive effort,” and “the organization’s hands have always reached across borders and across oceans with the motto of ‘Good Will’ among all people.”

Travel teams are expensive, Franzi said, and he didn’t want any player to feel as though they couldn’t go because they couldn’t afford it.

“The problem with soccer is if you don’t have the money and you’re good, you can’t play because you always need someone to drive you to lessons and games and to pay for the training sessions,” Franzi said. “Our club charges less than the typical fee and we offer scholarships to kids that can’t afford it.”

A few players admitted that they couldn’t afford the $3,000 fee, so Franzi got to work thinking of a way to raise funds. The team sold about 1,000 Krispy Kreme Doughnut boxes, and they got to keep a portion of what they sold. Those funds, combined with some other efforts, covered the kids who needed it.

“Frank wanted to do something for the group that was different and special that kind of supported their commitment to the sport and to the team and to the club,” Scott Knight, the team’s coach, said. “We made it clear that if a player couldn’t go because of money, that nobody got left behind, and Frank was a rockstar for that.”

The team played a training match in Denmark on July 15 before heading to Sweden. They won their first game on Monday, beating a team from Germany and will play a game every day after that. They come back on Sunday.

“It’s a very dedicated group and I think they deserve the experience,” Knight said. “If we can be fortunate enough to be successful and win matches than that would be amazing.”

Mustafich said that he has confidence that his team can do well.

“I believe in our team to go pretty far,” he said. “Our experience together makes us special because not a lot of teams can say that they’ve been playing together since fifth grade. I think the chemistry from that time building up to now has helped us so much.”