The Friendship Cup was created in 1998 with the objective of promoting the integration among U-15 Brazilian and Japanese players. It represented the consolidation of the soccer relationship between these two countries at the U-15 class, a crucial age for the boys’ development into real athletes. Nowadays, six years after its first edition, the Cup is considered one of the U-15 class’ most important competitions. It can be proved by the fact that every year, more and more international clubs are asking to take part of the tournament, which takes place in every August, at both Zico’s Soccer Centre (Recreio dos Bandeirantes) and Rio CFZ’s Training Center (Vargem Pequena). For the next years, the organization is considering the inclusion of European teams, like the Italians Milan and Udinese, the French PSG and even some African ones.

THE BEGINNING – The tournament started to be designed during the mid nineties, mostly because of Zico’s connection with the Japanese soccer. He played for the Kashima Antlers until 1994, and worked, at that time, as the team’s technical coordinator. In 1997, the project was already completed and all efforts were turned into organizing the first edition of the Friendship Cup. In August, the Kashima Antlers would come to Zico’s Soccer Centre for a ten-day training period, with the objective of keeping in touch with the Brazilian soccer. It is not known from whom the idea of starting the tournament came from, but the fact is that Zico, Zico Soccer Centre’s managers and the Japanese club’s marketing director, Takashima, agreed that it would be better to put the kids to compete, instead of just let them training. Not only because of the integration side, but also because the boys that trained at the club returned to Japan technically differentiated from the others, confirming the quick evolution provided by the interchange.

“We left them with our teachers, many of them quality players of the past, like Andrade, for example. And, when coming back home, both the boys and the teams achieved amazing results at local tournaments. They reached titles. The Japanese people give a lot of importance to the Friendship Cup. We have Japanese sponsors, good promotion and the matches are aired by a local tv show”, Zico speaks.

It was CFZ’s vice-president, Antônio Simões da Costa, who suggested naming the competition as “Friendship Cup”, highlighting the friendly aspects of the relationship between the two people. Thus, it was created, in August of 1998, a new U-15 tournament, whole organized by the professionals of Zico’s Soccer Centre. Up to the sixth edition, 25 teams had already taken part of the competition, won by Rio’s CFZ for the first time in 2003.