In the spring of 2016, I attended a youth soccer tournament along with my team on the Grand Cayman Island in the Cayman Islands. It was honestly a tough decision to make to go in the first place. In leaving for a week and a half, I missed all of review week, reading day, and the first two days of finals during my freshman year. While my teachers were not too pleased to hear that I would be leaving for a while at such a critical point in the school year (and one tried to convince me I was making a mistake), in the end I am more than glad that I left and went on one of, if not my favorite soccer trip ever.
On the field, there was a mixed bag of experiences. On one hand we did not do as well as we expected and would have wanted to. We lost the first game to Manchester City 5-1 after being up 1-0. We tied an inferior Cuban National team. We beat the Houston Dynamo in the last game of the group stage, and tied our consolation game against the Cayman Island National team. On the other hand though, while the results were disappointing, each individual game brought a cool unique experience. For those that are not soccer fans, Manchester City is one of the best clubs in the world, and have been dubbed to have some of the best youth teams in the world as well. In the game we played in, several of the guys we lined up against are currently playing professional soccer in England and Germany, and it was great to be able to have a chance to match up against them. In the game against Cuba, we played a team of boys that had never left the island of Cuba before this tournament.
Off the field, there were more opportunities to meet guys from all over the world and to enjoy the beautiful country. In our hotel, we stayed and had dinner with guys from Swindon Town in England, and Kingston, Jamaica. Guys from both teams had different and interesting outlooks on life that we did not have coming from Washington DC, and I’m sure the experience was just as enriching for them. We also got to share the hotel with Olympic Sprinter Usain Bolt, as he was on the island competing in Olympic trials ahead of the summer olympics in Rio that year.
The only regret I have about the Cayman islands is not getting to see more of the country. Our schedule was jam packed and our only day off we spent at the beach. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to go back and have more tourism opportunities.