On Friday, Vilnius started the biggest international youth football tournament in the Baltic states “Ateitis CUP 2016” . Among the twenty teams you can see JUVENTUS club, and in the team – twelve-year old Ivo Ross, whose mother emigrated from Lithuania to Italy more than a decade ago, but this weekend she and hers son has returned to the hers native country.

Constantly smiling bright haired Ivo together with the Turino team have won the first two matches of the tournament by the same score of 5:0 against the Finnish “MasKI” and the Latvian “Tukums” clubs, and tomorrow they will be trying to win a ticket to the final.

Six years ago I.Rossi in a small  “Samaire” club started to train, he got attention from coaches of JUVENTUS. He arrived at the review, and after several training sessions he has signed a contract.

Ivo was born in Italy.  “My grandparents live in Lithuania so I come here ever year, and when the coaches said that we will be going to Lithuania, I start to scream because of how happy I was” – with a big smile said the JUVENTUS defender.

“Teammates started asking me about Lithuanian food, the weather, and so on. They were happy about the food,  they were not happy about the weather (smiles). Seriously speaking, the whole team is very happy with the conditions.

We are used to playing on natural surfaces, but Sportima’s conditions are very good. We are looking forward tomorrow to try the LFF stadium. I know that it is where Lithuanian national teams are playing, so I feel extra stimulus.

I couldn’t tell the Lithuanian national team players, but I am always very interested interested in how well they are holding. I am always glad when they succeed “- said I.Rossi.

“Ateitis Cup” tournament will last seven weekends. The tournaments in the capital of Lithuania will have various age groups. JUVENTUS will bring three groups to Lithuania, and in two more weeks we will be visited by LIVERPOOL  club’s thirteen year olds.