Olympia girls in big Texas comp

A TEAM of Olympia Warriors girls has flown to the United States to take on some of the best club sides in the world at the 2018 Dallas International Girls Cup.

The Under-17 team will be one of three Australian clubs at the competition.

Coach Alastair Russell said it was difficult to know what to expect, but he hopes his team will be competitive.

“We’ve been away on a couple of trips to Melbourne over the last couple of years, playing the best teams Victoria has to offer,” Russell said.

“We’ve done extremely well against them, and that’s one of the reasons that we’ve looked for more opposition and bigger challenges.”

The Olympia side will play pool matches against US clubs tomorrow, Thursday and Friday, and Russell is looking forward to the final pool game against the Dallas Texans.

“They’re the biggest soccer club in the state. They’ve got 18,000 players and 400 teams, so I guess there’s going to be a pretty big and vociferous crowd there,” he said.

Captain Sophie Leszczynski, 16, is excited to be involved.

“We’ll be playing against some of the best in the world of our age, and I think it will be a really good indication of where we stand,” Leszczynski said.

The girls put in a huge effort to raise funds for the trip.