Dan Stacey's Gothia Cup Diary: Opening ceremony scenes as Wolverhampton Olympic hit Sweden

Lost passports. Opening ceremonies. Partying on a tram. What a crazy first 24 hours it has been in Sweden.

I guess first things first I should do is quickly explain what this mini-series is all about, and why a news reporter from the Express and Star is out here in Gothenburg in the first place.

I volunteer as a coach for Wolverhampton Olympic, a grassroots junior football club that has provided opportunities for hundreds of boys and girls across the West Midlands since it was formed in 2012.

However, this year 14 of those youngsters have been offered the opportunity of a lifetime - an invitation to play in the biggest youth football tournament in the world, the Gothia Cup.

This year 1,964 teams from 77 nations are here, and all were well represented at a memorable opening ceremony on Monday, July 13 evening.

Before that though there was plenty to get through. Let me give it a go.

The travelling from Birmingham Airport on Sunday was relatively incident free, aside from a brief scare for the lads when all 14 of them thought they had lost their passports. They had been left strewn around duty free, but thankfully retrieved by one of the other coaches before disaster could strike.

Our schedule for Monday was jam-packed. It started with a trip to Tingbergsvallen to watch the first game in our group, a Scandanavian derby between IL Runar 1 from Norway and Swedish side Munksund-Skuthamns SK. The Norwegians, maybe still fired up from Saturday’s defeat to England (sorry, I had to), came out all guns blazing and secured a 2-1 win.

We also started off against a Swedish side in the form of Sala FF, and despite a spirited effort against a side consisting of players nearly a year older than most of our lads we fell to a 3-0 defeat. Not the start we wanted, but certainly not a disgrace against a good team in home conditions.

There was not much time to lick our wounds as our late kick off meant we had to dash to make the train into the centre of Gothenburg in time for the opening ceremony at the Ullevi Stadium, which curiously took place after one round of group stage fixtures.

It was quite the spectacle, with a number of performances and displays from all across the world taking place as every one of the 77 represented nations was welcomed into the tournament. There was so much going on that at times you did not know where to look, and the lads were captivated in more ways than one.

The highlight of the day however came on the tram ride back from Gothenburg, where a group of Norwegian lads led a number of chants for the rest of the carriage to join in with, and of course we were more than happy to oblige. Even ‘The Row,’ popularised by the men’s first team this summer in the USA, got an outing. Brilliant.

The atmosphere was amazing, and every team from every nation gave a great account of themselves, and proved that few things unite people like sport, especially football.

In fact the closest thing I have seen to it was my trip to Germany in 2024 for the European Championships, where Scots and Swiss, Portuguese and Polish would be side by side in bars and restaurants, all sharing a common cause.

And that is what the first 24 hours in Sweden has been like. Chaos, to a point, but all revolving around the greatest sport in the world. Let’s see what Tuesday has in store!