This weekend nearly 600 soccer players will travel to the city of Philadelphia to play in the 4th Annual Icarus Cup, a 2-day 7v7 soccer tournament and festival held at Drexel University’s Vidas Field Complex.
The 4th Anual icarus Cup
The grassroots soccer tournament and festival, started by CASA Soccer League, will feature 80 teams from around the country competing in a high-paced, action-packed 7v7 style tournament with teams made up of different age ranges and skill sets. Each team will play 3 Group Stage games consisting of two 16-minute halves, with each group table feeding directly into a single elimination Knockout bracket.
“What started as a simple 40 team tournament in 2021 that was planned for during the dark times of COVID dating back to November 2020 has grown into a celebration of grassroots soccer culture that also features in Austin, TX and Portland ME. The last few years has seen the Icarus Cup consistently hit our capped 80 team number and grow into an entire weekend extravaganza”
Nolan Bair, Executive Director of CASA Soccer League
The tournament and festival aren’t just something for those playing to enjoy either, with free admission and lots of things planned for soccer fans to take in throughout the weekend. Attendees can enjoy a Skills Competition with cash prizes, an all-day Beer Garden featuring an array of beers and seltzers, music from a live DJ, and a Vendor Village featuring an array of soccer gear, apparel, merchandise, and a variety of local Philly businesses, food and beverages.
“It’s become an event that players across the country are marking down on their calendars months in advance, especially at the main tournament in Philadelphia every July.”
Nolan Blair
Each team participating in the Icarus Cup will be outfitted with a custom 1-of-1 kit created specifically
for the tournament by Philadelphia’s Icarus FC, a design-focused brand founded in 2017 by Robby Smukler to provide thousands of teams around the world with creative and personal football kits, which sets Icarus Cup apart from other local tournaments of its kind.
“When I moved to Philadelphia I got connected with a team through one of my cousins and started playing in CASA. I noticed that none of the teams were wearing anything remotely cool. It was either ugly, impersonal, template jerseys or just straight up knock off replicas of Man United, Dortmund, etc. I realized that there might be a market for the jersey and logo designs I had been making as a hobby.”
Robby Smukler, Founder and Creative Director of Icarus FC
These aren’t your typical Sunday League kits. The jerseys that Robby and Icarus FC design and provide local teams with are something special and could catch the attention of even the biggest soccer shirt collectors, often tying in Robby’s love of history, geography, and the connection between sports and culture into his design concepts.
The full range of 2024 Icarus Cup kits is now available for sale online (https://icarusfc.com/collections/icarus-cup-2024-jerseys), and there are a bunch of beauties this year, per usual. Even cooler, many of the designs feature front shirt sponsorship from your favorite local Philadelphia brands such as BLOOMSDAY, Paratodo Co., Studio Symphony Philly, Martha, Carbon Copy, Gilda Coffee, Bad Brother, Kouklet & Panda Brazilian Bakehouse, Rival Bros Coffee, Safe-Hub, Proco’s Porchetteria, Yerba Crew, Small Oven Pastry Shop, Ginja Snap, and so many more cool brands from around Philadelphia, the United States and beyond.
“We design around 120 concepts for the tournament. Every year we pick a vague theme and create a number of prompts for ourselves to use in the process. This year we focused on places in the world our staff wanted to visit at some point in their lives and created designs using those places as inspiration. From the ~120 we whittle it down to 80 designs that teams can select when they sign up for the tournament.”
Robby Smukler
With the growth of the Icarus Cup over the last few years, it’s no longer just a local tournament for Soccer players in Philadelphia to come together and compete in. 2024’s edition will feature teams from New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Georgia, Washington State, Texas, and more.
Fans of the Philadelphia Union might be interested in attending the Icarus Cup this weekend as one of the teams competing in the tournament is made up of former Union players. I wasn’t able to get confirmation of the entire squad, but when I asked who would be playing in this year’s tournament, Antoine Hoppenot, Jimmy McLaughlin, Zach Pfeffer, and Gabriel Farfan were some names thrown around to me.
The tournament starts early Saturday the 13th and games are played at a number of different venues, with all Knockout Round games moving to Drexel University’s Vidas Field Complex at 12pm, where fans can enjoy the other things planned like food, vendors, music and a beer garden. The Skills Competition will take place on Sunday the 14th, where participants will have the chance to
demonstrate their soccer prowess in a series of six individual skill-based challenges. The weekend will end with a Euro 2024 Finals watch Party at Carbon Copy Brewing.
Admission is free, and no registration is needed to attend, so head out to the Icarus Cup on Saturday afternoon and enjoy some local grassroots soccer in a celebration of our local soccer community.
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Featured Image Credit: Philadelphia Union
