J. Gregory Gerdel
A colorful soccer celebration will be held at Montpelier High School Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The event features 3 vs. 3 playdown games for both boys and girls teams, brightly colored international team T-shirts, face painting, an exhibition game featuring players from many countries, and world music.
The 3 vs. 3 teams will represent soccer-loving nations from throughout the world and will compete based on the grade levels the players will enter this fall: 3–4 /5–6 /7–8. Teams can include three or four players. The registration fee for each team is $50. The deadline for registration is Aug. 7.
Emmanuel Riby Williams, the K–4 physical education instructor at Montpelier’s Union Elementary School, first became involved with the World Soccer Festival in 2012 when he taught in Hyde Park.
“Soccer is the one sport that brings people together all over the world. It’s like a language that crosses all cultures,” Riby Williams said. During early July, he coordinated a series of exhibition games for a soccer team from the U.S. Virgin Islands that spent a week touring Vermont.
The schedule for the day’s events:
9:00 a.m. 3v3 team check-in opens
- 10:00 a.m. 3v3 team check-in closes
- 10:05 a.m. Parade of nations
- 10:15 a.m. Welcome, rules meeting, and 8th-grade graduation
- 10:45 a.m. International exhibition game kick off
- 11:15 a.m. 3v3 Kids world cup first round kick off
- 12:00 p.m. 3v3 Kids world cup first round ends, lunch break
- 12:30 p.m. International game ends
- 12:35 p.m. 3v3 Kids world cup resumes
- 2:10 p.m. Festival ends
The festival coordinators, Kipp Bovey and Mark Isselhardt, can be reached at worldsoccerfestival@gmail.com or 802-498-4557. A secure link for team registration can be found at worldsoccerfestival.org.
