LIKE. The restart of international football also passes through Friuli Venezia Giulia. From Gradisca d’Isonzo, to be precise, where the 17th edition of the Under 16 Football Tournament of Nations was held yesterday at the Nuovo Teatro. It will be a “small” version, for only four teams, but no less significant .
Russia, North Macedonia, Albania and Slovenia are the national teams that will compete from 21 to 27 June on the green rectangles of Gradisca, Gorizia, Lignano and Slovenia, as part of a cross-border friendship that anticipated Go2025 by over twenty years, as the regional president of Coni Giorgio Brandolin likes to remember.
Later, if the health emergency is over, the women’s tournament and the five-a-side football tournament will be recovered. This was announced by the president of the organizing committee Nicola Tommasini, who remarked on the “green” turning point of the tournament, attentive to ethical-sustainable behavior. The matches will be open to the public, with a capacity of 25% and a maximum of 1000 spectators.
As per tradition, the presentation ceremony saw the awarding of various personalities from sport and journalism. From the new coach of Allianz Trieste basketball, Franco Ciani from Udine, to the Friulian journalist of Sky Marco Caineri.
Double prize for Omar Monestier, director of Messaggero Veneto and Il Piccolo: in addition to the plaque of the Tournament of Nations, also a personalized number 10 Blue jersey sent to him by the FIGC president Gabriele Gravina through the number one of the regional FIGC Ermes Canciani. “Gradisca was able to be a community – underlined Monestier -, sport is more geopolitical than foreign ministries”. Memory award for the “admiral” Gianfranco Di Bert, after whom the student contest combined with the tournament is named.