Weston Teen Travels to Africa For Youth Soccer Tournament

The following information is from the New England Revolution:

Weston resident Declan McCabe recently traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, with the New England Revolution youth development program.

McCabe competed in the Future Champions Gauteng Under-17 tournament from March 26 to 31. The elite international competition featured 12 youth clubs from five different continents and the Revolution was the sole North American representative in the tournament field. More information about Future Champions can be found here.

The Under-17s finished the tournament with a 1-3-1 record, good for sixth place among the 12 international teams – making the Revolution the highest ranked American team in Future Champions history.

Below is a Q&A with McCabe, who scored several goals during the tournament:

Q. What was it like to travel to South Africa with the Revolution and play teams from all over the world?

McCabe: The experience was different from anything I’ve ever done before, with a roundtrip of 29 hours on an airplane and games against high-quality opponents. It was a lot of fun to get into the games and compete and it is certainly something I would love to do again sometime. Finishing sixth was the best any U.S. team has done so far and I think the overall trip was one the team will never forget.

Q. Aside from playing games against international competition, what was your favorite part of the trip?

McCabe: Personally, I loved everything about it, from the Pirates’ first-team game, to petting lion cubs, to the African music play. But I think that my favorite part was the play. The drummers, the dancers, and acrobatics involved were very cool and the only complaint I had about it was that it ended too quickly.

Q. After a few weeks of rest and regular training, how do you think you will apply what you and your teammates learned in South Africa to the remainder of the season?

McCabe: I think we came together as a whole and will have much better chemistry and unity throughout the season. We learned valuable lessons both on and off the field by playing against quality teams and learning how to deal with them. If we [apply] our lessons from Africa to the rest of the season, who knows what we could accomplish? But in order to do that, we need to keep focusing on our training and winning our next game.