Palatine draws thousands for Celtic soccer tourney

No, they don't play soccer wearing kilts, laughs tournament director Laurie White, dispelling a common misconception about the Palatine Celtic Soccer Club Celtic Cup.

The tournament's Scottish roots trace back to Jimmy Kinsella who started the Palatine Celtic Soccer Club in the early 1960s, naming it after his Celtic club in Scotland.

In reality, thousands of youth athletes of various ethnic backgrounds, clad in regular soccer uniforms, participate in the tournament yearly.

Roughly 6,000 girls and boys will converge on Palatine this weekend for the four-day event. They will play more than 600 games on 27 fields at the Palatine Park District and Palatine High School before the tournament wraps up Monday.

For the kids, the games are exciting, but the event feels more like a party.

"We have a lot of friends on different teams," said Eclipse team member Madison Navarro, 12, of Elmhurst who attends District 205's Sandburg Middle School. "We're more than friends, we're family."

Navarro's team won first place last year in the under 12 class, and members are hoping for a repeat this year.

"The tournament is exquisite and it's really fun cause our team is doing well," she said.

This year's tourney has drawn 337 private clubs and park district teams from three Midwestern states participating. An estimated 15,000 people are expected to attend.

"They have one of the best-run tournaments that you'll find," said Jeff Bradley, who runs the Naperville Soccer Association, which has sent girls teams to the tournament each year since 1980. "The competition is consistently good. We're one of the biggest clubs here."

It takes more than 700 volunteers to pull together an event of this scale.

"We have a great group of people," said White, who has been organizing the tournament for the last 15 years. "We really have a lot of fun."